Unable to create a working USB install disk for 11.3U1.

[Cartesio]

Hello, my FreeNAS installation no longer boots, I'm trying to install a fresh one, but I can't get a working USB install disk.. I tried Rufus 3.9 and 3.8, Win32DIskImager, USB Writer 1.3, the USB disk never boots. If I install FreeDOS on it from Rufus it does boot. Using BIOS, not UEFI.

Are there specific requirements for FreeNAS 11.3U1?

 

[Cartesio]

Ok, understood, it looks it can boot only from a UEFI BIOS. This machine has been running FreeNAS since version 9 and was upgraded to 11.3 without issues until it hung on booting at set zfs cache, and now looks impossible to recover it.

Time to ditch FreeNAS and switch to a Linux-based solution. Won't switch Windows Storage Server machines to any BSD solution too, too risky.

 

[pschatz100]

Hello, my FreeNAS installation no longer boots, I'm trying to install a fresh one, but I can't get a working USB install disk.. I tried Rufus 3.9 and 3.8, Win32DIskImager, USB Writer 1.3, the USB disk never boots. If I install FreeDOS on it from Rufus it does boot. Using BIOS, not UEFI.

Are there specific requirements for FreeNAS 11.3U1?

Given all the millions of users who run FreeNAS without issue, I would have to say that your problem is probably related to your hardware. Since you haven't provided your hardware specs and your version of FreeNAS as per forum rules, it is not possible to offer any specific advice. Saying "My FreeNAS installation no longer boots" provides no useful information.

Ok, understood, it looks it can boot only from a UEFI BIOS. This machine has been running FreeNAS since version 9 and was upgraded to 11.3 without issues until it hung on booting at set zfs cache, and now looks impossible to recover it.

Time to ditch FreeNAS and switch to a Linux-based solution. Won't switch Windows Storage Server machines to any BSD solution too, too risky.

Did you try to update directly from Version 9 to 11.3? What happens when you revert to Version 9? Anyway, your data should not be affected, regardless.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind:

FreeBSD is not Linux. Linux and Windows support a wider variety of hardware than does BSD - which is why providing hardware specs is important.

On some systems, including my own X9SCM Supermicro system, there are devices that prefer booting as BIOS devices and others that prefer booting as UEFI devices. I don't know why, but it seems related to either a motherboard bios issue or device firmware. In my case, I had to change from UEFI boot to BIOS boot when I changed boot devices. I haven't seen many comments about this lately, so maybe it was more of an issue on older hardware.

 

[Cam Alliance]

I had the same issue! I wanted to install from scratch with new ssd hdd's, then import my pools & backup config. I downloaded 11.3 U2.1 and tried to install, but for some reason my SuperMicro wouldn't boot the installation usb at all???

My solution was to write the 11.3 U2.1 image to an old 256Gb hdd and then plug it into the server temporarily. That worked like a charm for me! I'm not sure what's going on with usb installation with 11.3 Ux???

 

[Mark_the_Red]

Given all the millions of users who run FreeNAS without issue.................

I'm going to have to defend cartesio a little here.

FreeNas Stable 11.2-8 Feb 14 working fine so far. All of a sudden the MineOS won't let me access it via web browser which my kids use. OK. Check everything, nothing has changed in the Jail. So I look to see if FreeNas 11.2 needs an update. Everything is updated. Still can't access it and nothing has changed on my router. OK. Backup the servers, and decide to reinstall the MineOS from scratch. Nope Link broken.

OK. Freenas has moved on from 11.2 plugin support apparently. Lets upgrade to 11.3. Upgrade to 11.3. Now I can't access my jails UI or plugin UI at ALL. Keep getting this error. Great.

OK. Rollback to older version 11.2 should fix? Nope. Can't access anything at all. Plex. Nope. MineOS. Nope. Can't even access the data on the storage pool.

I lost everything here. So no. Its not OK. There is no way an OS with millions of users can be totally broken like this with by clicking an upgrade button.

May you have fun toiling through ssh code line by line diagnosing problems that FreeNas decided were working a little too smoothly and needed to break, but normal people don't.

Oh and here's another perfectly working plugin that FreeNas decided to break all on its own. And as you can see by the pageviews and comments, its not just me and cartesio.

FreeNas Plex Pluggin Fix!

Here is a tutorial on how to get your Plex finally working!

www.youtube.com

Its too bad, FreeNas WAS pretty good, its just lost site of its core function that it sells. STABILITY

 

[Apollo]

I had the same issue! I wanted to install from scratch with new ssd hdd's, then import my pools & backup config. I downloaded 11.3 U2.1 and tried to install, but for some reason my SuperMicro wouldn't boot the installation usb at all???

My solution was to write the 11.3 U2.1 image to an old 256Gb hdd and then plug it into the server temporarily. That worked like a charm for me! I'm not sure what's going on with usb installation with 11.3 Ux???

I think the issue is related to USB3. See if you can boot with USB2.

 

[Cam Alliance]

I think the issue is related to USB3. See if you can boot with USB2.

No, I thought the same thing, and no that didn't work either. Plugging in an old hard drive with the image via SATA cable was the only way for it to work.

 

[Yorick]

Can't even access the data on the storage pool.

Did you click the "upgrade feature flags" button? It does warn you this will make the pool read-only in previous versions. The warning is there; maybe it also needs to be prominently in the Alert, not just the actual dialog.

This is a ZFS-ism that FreeNAS can't do much about: Feature flags are awesome; when you enable ones that become activated immediately and can't go back to enabled, you lose read/write compatibility with previous versions. I don't see a better way of adding features to ZFS, honestly.

 

[pschatz100]

I stand by my statement that you might have a hardware issue. Losing all your jails and the plugin UI is certainly an indication that something is amiss. FreeNAS is not perfect, but all these issues sound like a bigger problem than bugs in an update.

I asked for hardware and system details, and you don't want to provide them - so all I can say is "Good Luck"

One last thing... chances are good that your data is OK. Don't get panicky and destroy your data disks. Once you figure out how to get FreeNAS running again, you will be able to mount them. If you updated the ZFS feature flags as @Yorick commented, then you will have to install the latest version of FreeNAS. If you did not update the feature flags, then you can reinstall the version that was working OK for you.