This is a repost as for some reason it went to Apps/Virtualisation - deleted and reposted here.
New install of TrueNAS Core
Oldish I5 12gb RAM
Oldish 80gb SATA drive for boot, 2 500gb SATA drives will be for data.
Installed from bootable ISO on USB stick TrueNAS CORE 13.0-U6.2
Seems to install ok. At end says reboot and move installation media.
Do so and it seems to boot ok initially, then at some point I get
Mounting from zfs:boot-pool/ROOT/default failed with error 2
Repeated the installation, reformatting the boot drive to be. No change to behaviour.
I have no idea why this happens or what āerror 2ā is. I do use linux somewhat, but not an expert. I have another TrueNAS Core system at my own home and itās been trouble free for years - and itās using a USB stick for boot media.
I tried doing this with a USB stick and got strange errors so I found a usable (no SMART errors) 80gb drive and used that. There is nothing wrong with the drive.
The mainboard has RAID capability, but I have it in AHCI mode, in BIOS boot mode.
Itās capable of UEFI but donāt want to mess with it.
Install was from a 32gb Verbatim StoreNGo with Ventoy.
Itās weird issues like this that make me hate linux at times. (Ok, yeah, I know itās BSD, but still a 'Nix ok?)
Any help getting this working would be much appreciated. Itās intended to be a 500gb mirror (raid 1 by TrueNas if I can ever get it to work - not hardware raid 1) just for storing movies and music everyone can access. Nothing dramatic.
Anyone know whatās going on here?
I had to create a new topic because there seems to not be one with that error in the system - though there was on the old āread onlyā forums but it was from 2012 soā¦
Appreciate any help. Iāve had 40 years experience with computers, but mostly DOS/Windows (every version) Novell Netware, VMS and DragonOS Focal on a couple of PCs.
Tried TrueNAS Scale. That was even worse. Kernel Panic in Installer.
Too much garbage test spat out to actually read but something about syncing I think.
Soā¦ changed hard drives. Much newer 500gb drive - not going to wasted it as a boot device, but figured it would do to prove whether the drive was the problem.
Evidently it isnāt. Same outcome - TrueNAS Core installed completes normally, but it fails to load the zfs with āerror 2ā (whatever that is).
I noticed that the drive was not plugged into SATA 0 and the bios would try and rearrange boot order to boot from that first, so I replugged everything so that the boot drive Iām trying to install to became ADA0 instead of ADA2.
Fresh Install. No change to behaviour.
āMounting from zfs:boot-pool/ROOT/default failed with error 2ā
I have no idea what this means or what to do about it.
The hardware (aside from the disk drives) is IDENTICAL to the system I have at home thatās had TrueNAS Core on it, in fact it was initially built on FreeNAS, so I know the hardware is compatible.
Can some kind soul please tell WTH is going on here. And WTH does āerror 2ā mean anyway?
Ok, not sure if the circumstance is the same, but āerror 2ā is apparently āUnknown File Systemā. Is there an intelligent reason it doesnāt just say āUnknown File Systemā instead of āError 2ā? Or is there an aversion to plain language?
If we can assume this error doesnāt occur during upgrades (since it leaves the boot stuff alone presumably) could a fix be to try this. Problem is I have no idea how to do that from the post halt command line.
Ok I canāt figure out how to do anything from the mountroot or db prompts (well nothing that will let me edit loader.conf anyway, or even look at it so I can see if thatās the issue.
Soā¦ took it out and put it in my DragonOS (Lubuntu) system. Linux FS easy to mount in linux right? Wrong.
Ubuntu doesnāt speak ZFS by default it seems
After an hour of research managed to get the right utils loaded import the pool and go through the ridiculous sequence of commands necessary to set a mnt point etc.
Only you canāt mount it. Has something called ācanmountā set to off/no so nothing you do will mount it (well maybe, havenāt got that far, but it will probably screw it up for being the boot disk without another install.
Any suggestions? Because āInstall Windows 10, use the hardware raid driver and just share the damn drives from thatā is starting to look way better than messing with this for hours on end. I mean, if it wonāt even do a clean install because of inherent errors in the installer, Iām wondering what else is broken.
Noā¦ canāt see the point. It boots from the installed version fine, it just canāt mount the root file system because apparently loader doesnāt know what the root file system (zfs) is. Thatās what āerror 2ā means apparently. So booting legacy or UEFI wouldnāt affect that near as I can see.
Installer was booted from a Ventoy based USB stick and runs fine, completing successfully, and the removal and reboot starts it up from the onboard HD so itās not a boot issue as such. Takes around thirty seconds of loading stuff to get to the point where it tries to mount the root FS and falls over with error 2 leaving me at the mountroot prompt, where you canāt do anything to force it to recognise itās allowed to mount ZFS. You can manually specify the load of the root FS but it of course fails with the same error. This suggests the problem is that the installer creates the loader.conf without the necessary line to allow it to mount zfs as I suggested further up the thread. Problem is I canāt, from mountroot, either look at or edit loader.conf and the drive will not mount in a linux box even after I persuaded it to speak ZFS. Thereās a canmount parameter set to NO/OFF so I canāt even get at it. I think someone needs to look at the installer and ensure the generated loader.conf contains the line "zfs_load=āYESā because apparently, without that, it wonāt mount the root FS. I canāt believe this got released with this obvious bug.
And just for laughs, I tried SCALE on the same system. Didnāt like it. Installer has a kernel panic despite the hardware supposedly being able to support it (I5 with 12gb). Iām wondering what else is broken, but clearly the installer is. If youāre doing an update from within TrueNAS, it probably works fine, this would only show up on fresh installs Iām pretty sure.
Could you provide detailed hardware listing like the one in Stux signature. Just click on the black arrow in his post to expand the listing. Itās currently hidden. Itās a good example of what may help.
Um, I suppose. It doesnāt appear to me to be a hardware issue.
Oldish Intel server mainboard with I5 12gb RAM
Has onboard Intel HW raid, but itās not in RAID mode, itās in AHCI mode.
Oldish 80gb SATA drive for boot, 2 500gb SATA drives will be for data.
I tried substituting the newer 500gb SATA drive for testing and it made no difference.
Installed from 32gb Verbatinm StoreNGo using Ventoy, with TrueNAS CORE 13.0-U6.2 iso.
Using recommended legacy bios boot rather than UEFI, thought the system is capable of it.
Iso has been checked with the checksum and is correct. The installer completes successfully and the installation boots off the media fine, it looks to me to be purely a software issue ie the loader canāt mount zfs root because it doesnāt know what the file system is. (Meaning of āerror 2ā)
I donāt have the mainboard details readily available, but if you need them, Iāll see if I can find them on the mainboard. This is a retired Win 10 āServerā and I can confirm installling Win10 on it goes without a hitch, in BIOS Legacy boot and AHCI mode. There is nothing wrong with any of the hardware.
Hope that helps and thank you for responding.
Iām not clear on how this could be HW at all, given it boots, but the loader simply canāt speak ZFS it seems.
If thereās more detailed information that will help, please ask and Iāll dig it up.
Umā¦ Ok. I guess I could try that.
I have no idea how that would make any difference, as I said, itās not that it doesnāt boot, it does, it just wonāt load the root file system because to the loader zfs is an āunknown file systemā. But why the hell not, at least Iāll know thatās not a factor for sure.
Thanks for responding.
Iām uncertain how it could be hardware given it boots off the drive.
Tried 3 different sizes/makes of ATA drive. Same effect.
However, I tried UEFI and had no trouble booting the installer of USB stick and it ran and completed without any issue.
Removed it at the end and rebooted, again it booted off the SATA drive without delay but drops to mountroot prompt with exactly the same āError 2ā failure trying to mount ROOT using ZFS.
Iād have to say this does not suprise me at all. I canāt imagine how it could be hardware to be honest. Not saying itās impossible, seen too many strange outcomes with computers for that, but it doesnāt seem at all likely given itās just saying the file system is unknown type - not that it canāt find it.
Linux will try and mount it, but it has the canmount set to OFF, so you canāt mount it on another machine. I also tried installing DragonOS Focal (basically Lubuntu Linux) and that went on without an issue as well.
I can find no hardware issue, nor can I envisage how it could be involved. The loader clearly doesnāt know what ZFS file system is, thatās what error 2 means so this appears to be a BSD installerism of some kind, but I have no idea how to make the changes to loader.conf (assuming thatās what the problem is - I canāt even look at the darn file) that may fix it. Iām open to suggestion.
Iād perhaps suggest the reason the forums are not full of it is that it likely only occurs on new installations, not upgrades and most people in the forums are long term users - maybe others tried new installs and just binned it when it didnāt work. No way to be sure, but Iām fairly confident this is not a hardware issue and that itās related to ZFS and incorrect settings in loader.conf the installer generates. If thatās not it, I have no other idea what else it could be. Iāve tried it on three different drives now and Iām going to try it on an oldish Shuttle with an I5 just as a test, it doesnāt have enough SATA ports to make it server material, but it works reliably with both Win10 and DragonOS Focal as well.
IF you have any other ideas, Iād be very pleased to look into them, within the limits of my ability.
One other thing, I have an identical system at home, which dates to when it was FreeNAS and itās been constantly updated to the current version without an issue, only difference is make and size of HDs.
Never put a foot wrong and itās only got the minimum 8gb of ram.
Only other thing, this is an install on bare metal, not a VM. Really donāt like VMs much.
Ok, I guess we need to completely eliminate the possibility of a hardware issue.
Iāll post a detailed hardware description of the mainboard and drives, but itās an Intel Server Board from circa 2012 with an earlyish Intel I5. Iāll list all the HDs models as well.
Iām out and about until tomorrow, so Iāll post it then.
I had one other thought, is it possible one of you gentlemen could find the time to test the installation on spare hardware, just to see what happens?
It might be a way to eliminate hardware as an issue, or perhaps implicate it.
Just a thought.
Meantime, thank you to all that have given advice, itās much appreciated.
I just installed Core TrueNAS-13.0-U6.2 on an old laptop with 4GB of RAM. The first boot after install, choosing 4. Shutdown option and removing USB did error (couldnāt find boot?) but CTRL+ALT+DEL and it did a successful boot. Turned off computer for a few minutes and boots fine afterwards
Ancient Dell Inspiron 1525. Service Tag H8W82H1 From around 2009, per Dell service ending.
I just did the computer in my sig with TrueNAS-SCALE-24.04.2 a few days ago, fresh install. Only problem was I had to choose UFI instead of BIOS in the installer otherwise I got a ānot a block deviceā error upon trying to install to SSD or HDD. Computer is from around 2011 (when service ended per Dell)
Ok, thanks for that.
Iām going to try it on the Shuttle and see what happens.
So it sounds like something peculiar to this particular system.
BIOS Version? Iāll see if thereās any updates available.
Why it only shows up with TrueNAS is puzzling - and itās not as if it doesnāt boot, it does, it just wonāt load ROOT FS as part of the boot process.
And how does it cause error 2? I canāt figure out why it does this rather than just crash and burn if itās a hardware issue. Weird.
When I tried SCALE on it, I got a kernel panic. That was booted in legacy bios mode though. Might try it in UEFI with SCALE and see what happens.
I canāt figure out what could be creating this effect if the hardware isnāt actually broken.
One clue. Iāve just noticed there is a bunch of text that briefly flashes on the screen before the usual bios dialog on power up. Itās way too fast for me to read it, literally blink and you miss it, first time Iāve noticed, so might see if I can pause it and catch that. Might be complaining about something. CMOS Battery? Who knows. I"ll see if I can catch it, is there a way to capture all the bios messages from power on? I donāt know of any. Itās there for a second at most.
Iām also going to try removing the 2nd bank of 4gb RAM and see what happens with the original 8gb, maybe a memory error of some kind Iām missingā¦ That might make sense if it somehow scrambled the FS id in ram I suppose.
At least I can now be reasonable sure itās the specific system that is the issue and not a broader issue with the installer.
Thanks for doing that. Appreciate the time you have given it.
Regards
Ok, I tried the 80gb SATA drive in the I5 Shuttle with 8gb and it worked.
Booted the installer, did a clean install, rebooted and it worked, loaded the ZFS Root without an issue and eventually wound up at the Console screen.
So, itās the hardware. Iāve tried changing ram around (donāt have a lot of the DDR3 that this needs, but some combinations seemed to make it worse (a couple caused a kernel panic in the installer, others worked fine, including 4gb of known good ram I borrowed from a Win10 box. But none of them would load ZFS root after install finished and the system was rebooted.
Either pretty much all the RAM I have (maybe a dozen sticks of various sizes that fit this board) is faulty or itās the mainboard, based on available evidence Iām going for the mainboard. Which is annoying as I donāt have another board around that will take an I5 or better that has enough SATA drive ports to make a usable system and/or physical room for 3 hdds (1 boot, 2 x RAID1). So I might have to see if I can get another mainboard from somewhere.
Iāve gone over it with a magnifier and canāt see any obvious issues, no popped caps, corrosion etc, it all looks fine, but clearly something isnāt right.
Thanks for all your help, it seems your first thought, that it was hardware was in fact correct, though itās the most obscure hardware issue I can recall seeing to be quite honest. Iām going to ramtest all the ram I can find just on the off chance itās faulty (stranger things have happened) but Iāll do it in another system and go from there, but at this point I think we can leave it as a āHardware broken in some strange wayā issue and move on from here.
Thank you again for all your help and patience, much appreciated.
Both seems to work depending on your hardware. I just managed a successful install (on an Old IBM Pentum Duo server with only 6 gig of RAM.) in BIOS and on a Shuttle I5 using UEFI for both installer and installed system. The system I had all the problems with seems to have subtle mainboard or possibly ram issues, but it made no difference booting in BIOS or UEFI.
