Unable to install or re-install on new or old hardware which was working before

TrueNAS General
1

Quick story time here.

Two weeks I moved my installation (Scale 2410.2) from a C2750D4I which as been running happily for years over multiple version of TrueNAS to an X5704D4U.

I got a couple of hangs on the new board over a couple of weeks and thought, ok I will factory rest the BIOS / UEFI and reinstall / reload config.

I have done this a few times over the years of using TrueNAS so it is not my first rodeo with the process.

Long story short I could not get TrueNAS to reinstall on hardware that it had been running on a few minutes before.

I tried multiple downloads of the iso and multiple USB keys and different USB ports. Tried different settings in the BIOS / UEFI but no luck.

Ok. I need to get it back up and working. I will go to the old board.

I reinstall. I have changed nothing in the BIOS of the old board. I get the SAME failures as the new board! With the same software it was running happily two weeks ago.

So now what? I have two sets of hardware both of which I know CAN run TrueNAS 24.10.2 but neither of which can have it reinstalled fresh.

Any pointers? I do need to get this back up and working ASAP.

I can’t include a link to the image of the errors or the image itself…

spl: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel
zfs: module license ‘CDDL’ taints kernel
Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
zfs: module license taints kernel
loaded module v2.2.99-1 zfs pool version 5000 zfs filesystem version 5
begin: sleeping for … done
importing zfs root pool ‘boot-pool’ failure: 1
command: sbin/zpool import -N -f ‘boot-pool’
message: cannot import ‘boot-pool’: no such pool available
failed to import ‘boot-pool’
manually import the pool and exit’

Busybox v1.35.0…

initramfs…

2

Are you using the same disk as boot pool on both system?

3

Yes.

Its a mirrored pair of Crucial BX500 240GB (CT240BX500SSD1)

I have made progress. I went back to try and install 23.10. It failed again but with a slightly more useful error about being unable to write to a specific partition on one of the boot disks.

This lead me to pull both drives and attach them to my PC. One was clear but the other had a bunch of weird small partitions on it.

It seems the installer was not wiping the drives properly.

I cleared the partitions with gparted and tried again.

Now TrueNAS installed. I have upgraded from 23.10 → 24.04.2.5 → 24.10.2 and re-imported my data pool.

I am going to setup the rest of my config manually as it is not to complicated.

Interesting when booting I can see the same ‘kernel taint’ errors I had before but it just moves past them.

My boot disks now show as ‘Disks with exported pools’ in the storage dashboard. Should I create a new pool for these?

4

While I am back up and running I am rather nervous at the the message in the GUI where it says both boot disks have exported pools.

root@artifact[/home/admin]# zpool status -v
  pool: aqueduct
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub repaired 0B in 00:13:24 with 0 errors on Sun Mar 16 01:56:19 2025
config:

        NAME                                      STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        aqueduct                                  ONLINE       0     0     0
          raidz1-0                                ONLINE       0     0     0
            7e76b40b-ce61-4e37-b30d-6f7ecaa6296a  ONLINE       0     0     0
            927f23f9-1450-4ef3-a4b4-c91c01e14ae9  ONLINE       0     0     0
            0a727026-95b9-4127-9132-fea5299f5e4c  ONLINE       0     0     0
            ee3e76f3-238b-41e1-80a4-73e662d1acd1  ONLINE       0     0     0
            1f9dfff2-a194-4a7b-9fbd-447a61fa7adb  ONLINE       0     0     0
            592fa13c-6932-4242-98f8-c6ae883c5c39  ONLINE       0     0     0
          raidz1-1                                ONLINE       0     0     0
            91918f13-2443-4c71-90be-78959c1b91e0  ONLINE       0     0     0
            d5878b70-76d5-48bf-95bb-303710e4438a  ONLINE       0     0     0
            2b90f0ac-7c56-4488-93f6-864dc89367f2  ONLINE       0     0     0
            3aeeda9a-a41f-4c81-a868-e569d81a8533  ONLINE       0     0     0
            74eb10d4-a7e4-4d5b-a6ea-19ea97d24604  ONLINE       0     0     0
            b978f07d-8351-4142-95d2-4d6c06475567  ONLINE       0     0     0
        logs
          e436e267-de55-4cca-bab7-e1efd8a4be7e    ONLINE       0     0     0
        spares
          b40965bb-3ae6-4024-bec9-530b5d474370    AVAIL   

errors: No known data errors

  pool: boot-pool
 state: ONLINE
status: Some supported and requested features are not enabled on the pool.
        The pool can still be used, but some features are unavailable.
action: Enable all features using 'zpool upgrade'. Once this is done,
        the pool may no longer be accessible by software that does not support
        the features. See zpool-features(7) for details.
config:

        NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        boot-pool   ONLINE       0     0     0
          mirror-0  ONLINE       0     0     0
            sdf3    ONLINE       0     0     0
            sda3    ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors
root@artifact[/home/admin]#

Can I reboot safely or am I just going to be dumped at an initramfs prompt?

Seems to be the same problem here.

5

IMHO too is the exactly same problem you linked.
Reading what they discuss into jyra, in your place, i would not risk - bit the bullet - and trying wipe again the disks at a low level, don’t know if you already tried what they suggest blkdiscard /dev/nvme0n1; also, try to install directly 24.10.2 without upgrade, if possible

6

I’ll give it a go this coming weekend. I don’t have the time or inclination before then. I will update this thread when I do.

At least I know why my problem was happening now.

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