FreeNAS boot USB

[F]

I bought a couple of Kingston DataTraveller 16GB G4 thumb drives to
mount FreeNAS 9.3 on but the installation fails to complete every time
with an error (can't remember the exact details) that indicates some
misalignment in where the data is being written to on the drive.

Is there a fix, or do I need another manufacturer? My 8GB drives work
fine, or did until I started getting a corruption notice!

I was looking at 16GB as 8GB seems to be getting a little tight as
FreeNAS develops.

--
F

[Mark]

Did you use UNetbootin?

[F]

I burnt FreeNAS 9.3 to a CD, connected it to the Proliant, inserted the
USB flash drive in the USB slot inside the server and let it get on with
automagically building the USB installation from that.

--
F

[Mark]

I just installed the ISO directly to the USB drive and it worked. I
don't think installing from a CDROM to a flash drive is supported.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Sun, 24 Jan 2016 13:22:08 +0000, F <news@nowhere> wrote:

>I bought a couple of Kingston DataTraveller 16GB G4 thumb drives to
>mount FreeNAS 9.3 on but the installation fails to complete every time
>with an error (can't remember the exact details) that indicates some
>misalignment in where the data is being written to on the drive.

I'm using those for mine, they're marked 16gig DataTraveler(r) SE9 G2. I
have another one in package on the desk here. They worked fine.

I used the "create an 8gig bootable installer USB, use that to boot the
hardware and install to the DataTraveler(r)(sic)" method. No issues.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"If you think C++ is not overly complicated, just what is a protected
abstract virtual base pure virtual private destructor, and when was the
last time you needed one?" - Tom Cargil, C++ Journal

[F]

Thanks, but it is. I've used it on 8GB drives without any problems.

--
F

[F]

On 24/01/2016 16:31, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Jan 2016 13:22:08 +0000, F <news@nowhere> wrote:
>
>> I bought a couple of Kingston DataTraveller 16GB G4 thumb drives to
>> mount FreeNAS 9.3 on but the installation fails to complete every time
>> with an error (can't remember the exact details) that indicates some
>> misalignment in where the data is being written to on the drive.
>
> I'm using those for mine, they're marked 16gig DataTraveler(r) SE9 G2. I
> have another one in package on the desk here. They worked fine.

The ones I have are USB 3 drives. Is yours?

> I used the "create an 8gig bootable installer USB, use that to boot the
> hardware and install to the DataTraveler(r)(sic)" method. No issues.

And where would I find an idiot's guide to "create an 8gig bootable

installer USB, use that to boot the hardware and install to the

DataTraveler(r)(sic)"?

--
F

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Sun, 24 Jan 2016 19:08:04 +0000, F <news@nowhere> wrote:

>On 24/01/2016 16:31, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
>> On Sun, 24 Jan 2016 13:22:08 +0000, F <news@nowhere> wrote:
>>
>>> I bought a couple of Kingston DataTraveller 16GB G4 thumb drives to
>>> mount FreeNAS 9.3 on but the installation fails to complete every time
>>> with an error (can't remember the exact details) that indicates some
>>> misalignment in where the data is being written to on the drive.
>>
>> I'm using those for mine, they're marked 16gig DataTraveler(r) SE9 G2. I
>> have another one in package on the desk here. They worked fine.
>
>The ones I have are USB 3 drives. Is yours?

Yep.

>> I used the "create an 8gig bootable installer USB, use that to boot the
>> hardware and install to the DataTraveler(r)(sic)" method. No issues.
>
>And where would I find an idiot's guide to "create an 8gig bootable
>installer USB, use that to boot the hardware and install to the
>DataTraveler(r)(sic)"?

https://doc.freenas.org/9.3/freenas_install.html as usual. I use Macs at
home so I downloaded the .iso, followed section 2.2.2, then plug in both
the installer and DataTraveler, use the BIOS to pick the right one to
boot from, and follow section 2.3.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"If we do not change the direction we are going, we are likely to
end up where we are headed." - anon

[F]

Ah, thanks! I had seen that but I thought you had found something else.

Two 16GB SE9 G2 are on their way.

--
F

[F]

Installed now, and successfully, despite an error being reported during
installation:
'da1p2 added, but partition is not aligned on 8388608 bytes'.

Should I be concerned?

--
F

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Nah, alignment issues are mild warnings about efficiency. If it was a
device to be used for fast database access then it would be a concern,
but for read-once-into-RAM (which the FreeNAS boot stick largely is) not
at all.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
aibohphobia, n., The fear of palindromes

[F]

Thanks for the reassurance!

--
F

[Johnny B Good]

A while back I bought a pack of 3 SanDisk Cruzer Facet[1] 8GB pen drives
at a bargain price of £9.99 from PC World. I thought they'd come in handy
as usb bootable drives for stuff such as this. Unfortunately, it turns
out I was completely wrong. :-(

They're absolutely fine for storing data but, as far as unetbootin is
concerned, they fail to show up in its usb mass storage drive list (win2k
OS at the time - it's the same story regardless of host OS as it happens).

However, I did notice one oddity about them in win2k's explorer view
(the "My Computer" window). They appear just like an external hard drive,
complete with the same characteristics, rather than as typical flash
media. You'd think making a "HDD-look-a-like" 'bootable' would be a doddle
but the usual flash media tools designed to make usb flash media drives
bootable just can't handle this implementation of flash media based
storage drive.

I daresay there should be a way to make such media bootable by using
more conventional tools designed for disk drives (HDDs and FDDs) rather
than flash media but I've never gotten round to figuring how to implement
this using the iso boot images most flash media tools can utilise with
ease to create bootable flash media from.

[1] I also happen to own an 8GB Cruzer Blade pen drive which behaves just
like all the other 'normal' flash based pen drives I've ever owned from
64MB[2] and up (IOW, no problems using it with Unetbootin).

[2] The same 64MB SD card I once used to boot FreeNAS-generic-pc-0.64
through to FreeNAS-amd64-embedded-0.7.2.4919 from (Mar 2006 to Apr 2010).
After that I was forced to squander a 512MB SD card on this duty, then it
became 1GB and then 2GB. I think the current card (NAS4Free - the renamed
version of the original, still ongoing FreeNAS project) is an 8GB one. I
think I skipped the 4GB stage when the in place image upgrade process
claimed the 2GB SD card I was using had insufficient capacity.

I was forced to go through a rather messy clean install to another
bootable usb drive from which to *install* N4F onto the final working
boot media I'd be using to allow subsequent image updates to be applied
without any such let or hindrance as I had suffered with the 2GB SD card
(which, btw, was well less than half filled at the time). I didn't want
to reach the stage of "Insufficient space to perform the image upgrade"
any time soon, hence the jump from 2GB straight to 8GB.

Aside from the possible issue of those Kingston DataTraveller 16GB G4
thumb drives being differently implemented from the more usual mass
storage format expected by Unetbootin (or whatever built in "create a
bootable flash media drive from an ISO image" utilty you're currently
struggling with), I'd say 16GB is a wiser choice than my own 8GB one.

--
Johnny B Good

[Johnny B Good]

That's because you were using a standard USB pen drive rather than
something weird that was trying to emulate an HDD like those Sandisk
Cruzer Facet 8GB pen drives I mentioned (and possibly F<news>'s 16GB
Kingston drives).

>
> Thanks, but it is. I've used it on 8GB drives without any problems.

So, no change there then from the original ongoing FreeNAS project now
known as NAS4Free. :-)

BTW, I had to go through the same 2 step process only I bypassed the CD
creation step by using the iso image to create a bootable flash drive
instead (from which to create the final working install onto another
flash memory card).

JOOI, when you installed onto the Kingston Flash drive, was it seeing it
as just another 16GB HDD? Although I had the opportunity to use one of
those 'weird' Cruzer Facet sticks instead of the 8GB SD card, I didn't,
simply because I didn't want to put up with the 'stick-y-out' downside of
a USB stick (ie, it sticks out!).

The SD card stays nicely hidden from sight and physically protected by
the damped flip down external half height 5 1/4 inch drive bay cover on
the Gateway 2000 Desktop case I've been using this past decade or so for
my current NAS builds. I fitted an internal card reader into a 3 1/2 inch
to 5 1/4 inch drive adapter mounted behind that flip down cover.

Whilst I do still have a working (the last time I used it) CDROM drive
in the box, its prime function is merely to mount the custom tray front
piece to keep the Gateway case's front panel appearance looking neat and
tidy. It's been many years since I last connected it up to install
anything. I suppose I could remove it and hot glue the cd tray front
piece in place but I don't need any more HDD space and the extra ballast
is more a benefit than a hindrance so it stays put for the time being.

--
Johnny B Good

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Fri, 29 Jan 2016 22:14:08 GMT, Johnny B Good
<johnny...@invalid.ntlworld.com> wrote:

> JOOI, when you installed onto the Kingston Flash drive, was it seeing it
>as just another 16GB HDD?

The DataTraveler drives are standard USB Mass Storage, no strange
emulation modes at all.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
'It's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? `I protect the lives and
property of my citizens; you keep the public safe from an unreasonable
and trouble-generating minority; he maintains a totalitarian regime of
thought control.' -- Bernard, Yes Minister

[BobH]

On 29/01/2016 21:40, Johnny B Good wrote:

> A while back I bought a pack of 3 SanDisk Cruzer Facet[1] 8GB pen drives
> at a bargain price of £9.99 from PC World. I thought they'd come in handy
> as usb bootable drives for stuff such as this. Unfortunately, it turns
> out I was completely wrong. :-(

I bought the same ones also from Curry's/PC World, and I use them as
bootable drives for various os's.
I use a Kingston Data Traveller 8GB inside my NAS box which boots up
FreeNAS, then I have a Sandisk Cruzer Blade 16GB which is used as a
Mirrored device on a external USB port.

[Johnny B Good]

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 01:43:23 +0000, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:

> On Fri, 29 Jan 2016 22:14:08 GMT, Johnny B Good
> <johnny...@invalid.ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>> JOOI, when you installed onto the Kingston Flash drive, was it seeing
>> it
>>as just another 16GB HDD?
>
> The DataTraveler drives are standard USB Mass Storage, no strange
> emulation modes at all.
>

Thanks for that informative reply, Jamie. I'd bought those 'cheap' 8GB
SanDisk pen drives to boost my stock of bootable flash media. I was
rather disappointed that they proved incompatible with the normal "create
bootable flash media drives" tools.

However, it has struck me that I just might be able to use them to
create win2k bootable pen drives by exploiting their "HDD-a-like"
appearance to the installer. Forgetting to disconnect a 4 slot card
reader (or simply disabling USB support in the BIOS) is a simple way to
land up with your boot disk volume being assigned the drive letter "H"[1]
when doing a fresh win2k install. :-(

[1] I realise the card reader only accounts for C,D,E & F but I think the
optical drive bumped the 1st HDD partition up from G to H. It was a case
of "Slaps forehead" and disabling the USB ports before "Rinsing and
repeating" the installation process to get it right.

--
Johnny B Good

[Johnny B Good]

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 09:53:57 +0000, BobH wrote:

> On 29/01/2016 21:40, Johnny B Good wrote:
>
>> A while back I bought a pack of 3 SanDisk Cruzer Facet[1] 8GB pen
>> drives
>> at a bargain price of £9.99 from PC World. I thought they'd come in
>> handy as usb bootable drives for stuff such as this. Unfortunately, it
>> turns out I was completely wrong. :-(
>
> I bought the same ones also from Curry's/PC World, and I use them as
> bootable drives for various os's.

That's a useful data point. I'm guessing you weren't using win2k as the
host OS from which to run Unetbootin (or equivilent). Perhaps my problem
was simply a "win2k oddity"?

> I use a Kingston Data Traveller 8GB inside my NAS box which boots up
> FreeNAS, then I have a Sandisk Cruzer Blade 16GB which is used as a
> Mirrored device on a external USB port.

Mind you, at that level of installation, the FreeNAS installer may
simply have regarded any such "HDD-a-like" behaving flash storage as
simply a suitable device to use via the install to HDD route.

--
Johnny B Good

[Jeff Gaines]

On 08/02/2016 in message <Vo4uy.765229$Vm2.3...@fx44.am4> Johnny B Good
wrote:

>(or simply disabling USB support in the BIOS) is a simple way to
>land up with your boot disk volume being assigned the drive letter "H"[1]
>when doing a fresh win2k install. :-(

Oh yes, the number of times I've done that - followed immediately by a
further install to rectify!

--
Jeff Gaines Wiltshire UK
If it's not broken, mess around with it until it is

[BobH]

I use Rufus to burn iso's to USB drives on a windows 8.1 and or 10
machine, and have never had any problems with them.