TrueNAS SCALE 24.10 unable to boot - stuck on loading initial ramdisk

I’ve been running Truenas SCALE for about a year, currently running 23.10.2 without issue. Attempted to upgrade to 24.04 a few months back and I ran into this problem, and attempted again yesterday afternoon with the release of 24.10. Booting into 24.04 and 24.10 stops at “loading initial ramdisk.” I am able to boot into 23.10.2 without issue.

Just attempted a TrueNAS-23.10.2 → TrueNAS-24.04.2.3 upgrade and ran into the issue. Everything seems to work in the web portal, but upon boot it stops at loading initial ramdisk.

My Hardware:

  • ASRock z170 oc formula (v7.60 bios, most recent)
  • Intel i7-6700k
  • Crucial Pro RAM 64GB DDR4
  • Micron 2300 NVMe 512GB (boot drive, firmware updated)
  • 18TB WD Red Pro HDD (7, currently)

Things I’ve tried:

  • Changing Bios settings (23.10.2 still works)
  • Fresh install to a SATA SSD (no joy)
  • Removing PCIE cards (didn’t help)
  • Banging my head on the wall (now my head hurts)
  • Comparing GRUB entries for anything weird (found none)
  • No GPU installed, just running onboard, and bios configured accordingly
  • I currently have an HDMI monitor plugged in for debugging
  • Running memtest (previously) has not shown errors
  • Confirmed the ISO hash before installation

Other threads I’ve reviewed:

I’ve searched the forums, I’ve searched the internet in general, and so far I’ve found others with similar problems - but I haven’t found any solutions. Any support or guidance will be greatly appreciated.

Not enough information.

Post a few of the other similar cases.

Worst option: Reinstall TN, use your config backup.

I have updated the original post with some of the other references that I’ve found and reviewed.

Specific to your reinstall recommendation - I cannot reinstall TN and use my config backup as TN won’t boot (24.x) to the point where I can use my backup. I do have backups, but TN won’t boot (24.x) to the point where I can actually use it. It just hangs. TN 23.10 boots fine.