SG-4860 Internal storage fried
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So my 4860 is currently failing to boot as it claims unrecoverable errors. FSCK has ran dozens of times, tried the -y and -p options I have seen suggested elsewhere with no luck. At this point I feel confident the internal storage is fried. The system supports mSATA, but I can not get the system to boot off a flash drive. Is there something I am over looking? I saw documentation for attempting to reload the default netgate firmware, I made an image on a USB drive, but it is never booting off this drive and continues to attempt to boot the local install until it fails with file system errors. I have test booted with the USB image on a pc without issue.
I do not currently have a mSATA drives, as I don't want to waste money on one if I can't figure out how to boot off a USB drive in order to do the install. When I look at what appears to be the bios setup options the only thing it lets me do is restore the default boot order, which does no good as its defaulting to the local storage.
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Does the unit have a warranty?
I would recommend not using USB as a boot media as you can get mSATA SSD's from $15-30 (8GB to 32GB depending from where you purchase).
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No warranty, and trying to boot from usb in order to perform a fresh install…
Originally I wanted to boot from USB in order to try a fresh install on the internal storage media... But at this point my goal would be to add mSATA, but not sure how far I would get if I can't switch around the boot order to install from USB and then actually boot off the mSATA. Unless this quark is by design and that simply adding in mSATA would start to give me what i'm looking for... But I have no spare mSATA laying around to test with.
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The SG-4860 will boot from USB first, mSATA second, and eMMC third.
The ADI installer will install to mSATA if it is present, else eMMC.
All you should have to do is install mSATA, boot from USB, and do a quick/easy install.
It should install to the mSATA and boot from it just fine without doing anything with the boot order.
Getting your 4860 back up and running by buying an mSATA drive would not be a "waste" of money, IMO. It would be better than it was running off eMMC.
Booting from USB should be easy. It is the default. Use any pfSense image labelled "ADI" and it should work fine. Booting from USB and installing to another USB will be a trick, though, because pretty much nobody does that.
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I thought booting from USB would be easy as well, which is why I was going to try a fresh install onto the internal storage. But so far I don't think it even recognizes the multiple flash drives I have attempted to boot from. Rarely do the Flash drives I am performing the install from show any activity, just an initial light when first plugged in.
I have installed an mSATA drive, but my results are the same.. System refuses to boot off of anything but the internal storage. It won't boot off USB, and I even went as far as installing the mSATA in my laptop, performing the install, and then moving it over to the 4860, but I still get filesystem errors as it tries to boot off internal storage.
The F12 boot menu present during the power on cycle only allows me to reset to default, but that doesn't appear to help any.
Any chance some jumper juggling could accomplish anything? Or is something hosed up with my system in not allowing alternative boot methods?
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You need to have a single USB drive inserted with a good, bootable image of an ADI installer in the USB slot when it is powered up. It should boot from it no matter what else is installed.
If you have tweaked the boot order, reset it to defaults.
It should look similar to this (SG-2440):
Press F12 for boot menu.
Select boot device:
1. USB MSC Drive Generic Flash Disk 8.07
2. AHCI/0: INTEL SSDMCEAC030B3 ATA-9 Hard-Disk (28626 MiBytes)
3. USB MSC Drive Generic Ultra HS-COMBO 1.98
4. iPXE (PCI 00:14.0)
5. iPXE (PCI 00:14.1)
6. iPXE (PCI 00:14.2)
7. iPXE (PCI 00:14.3)
8. Payload [setup]1. USB Thumb Drive
2. mSATA
3. eMMCWithout the thumb drive inserted:
Press F12 for boot menu.
Select boot device:
1. AHCI/0: INTEL SSDMCEAC030B3 ATA-9 Hard-Disk (28626 MiBytes)
2. USB MSC Drive Generic Ultra HS-COMBO 1.98
3. iPXE (PCI 00:14.0)
4. iPXE (PCI 00:14.1)
5. iPXE (PCI 00:14.2)
6. iPXE (PCI 00:14.3)
7. Payload [setup]The setup should look like this:
Booting from CBFS…
*** Sortbootorder payload ver 1.1 Sage Electronic Engineering *
flash_address = 0x700000
Type lower case letter to move device to top
boot devices
a USB 1
b USB 2
c SATA3 1
d SATA3 2
e msata
f SATA2 1
g SATA2 2
h SATA2 3
i USB-eMMC
j PXE 1
k PXE 2
l PXE 3
m PXE 4Type upper case letter to invoke action
R Restore boot order defaults
E Exit setup with save
X Exit setup without saveThe order that matters there is a+b,e,l
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This is what I am seeing
Google, Inc.
Serial Graphics Adapter 01/27/15
SGABIOS $Id: sgabios.S 8 2010-04-22 00:03:40Z nlaredo $ (wenwang@localhost.localdomain) Tue Jan 27 18:10:24 UTC 2015
Term: 80x24
O4 0
[2J
SeaBIOS (version SageBIOS-20170207_214005-localhost.localdomain)
iPXE (http://ipxe.org) 00:14.0 C100 PCI2.10 PnP PMM+7FB7AF80+7FADAF80 C100Press Ctrl-B to configure iPXE (PCI 00:14.0)…
iPXE (http://ipxe.org) 00:14.1 C200 PCI2.10 PnP PMM 7FB7AF80 7FADAF80 C200
iPXE (http://ipxe.org) 00:14.2 C300 PCI2.10 PnP PMM 7FB7AF80 7FADAF80 C300
iPXE (http://ipxe.org) 00:14.3 C400 PCI2.10 PnP PMM 7FB7AF80 7FADAF80 C400Press F12 for boot menu.
Select boot device:
1. USB MSC Drive Generic Ultra HS-COMBO 1.98
2. iPXE (PCI 00:14.0)
3. iPXE (PCI 00:14.1)
4. iPXE (PCI 00:14.2)
5. iPXE (PCI 00:14.3)
6. Payload [setup]Booting from CBFS..
When I go in payload setup I see this as the default
*** Sortbootorder payload ver 1.1 Sage Electronic Engineering *
flash_address = 0x700000
Type lower case letter to move device to top
boot devices
a USB 1
b USB 2
c SATA3 1
d SATA3 2
e msata
f SATA2 1
g SATA2 2
h SATA2 3
i USB-eMMC
j PXE 1
k PXE 2
l PXE 3
m PXE 4Type upper case letter to invoke action
R Restore boot order defaults
E Exit setup with save
X Exit setup without saveI have test booted the flash drive on a PC without issues, and I have used multiple flash drives with the ADI image loaded up.
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Ok, well I figured out part of my mistake, i had the mSATA in the wrong port…. Although it still seems my device refuses to boot from USB.
This is what my boot options look like with mSATA installed properly and a USB flash drive in the top port.
1. AHCI/0: PLEXTOR PX-64M6M ATA-8 Hard-Disk (61057 MiBytes)
2. USB MSC Drive Generic Ultra HS-COMBO 1.98
3. iPXE (PCI 00:14.0)
4. iPXE (PCI 00:14.1)
5. iPXE (PCI 00:14.2)
6. iPXE (PCI 00:14.3)
7. Payload [setup]So I think I can now get up and running only because I installed pfsense to the mSATA on my laptop and moved it to my SG-4860
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I may have jumped the gun, it booted up off my mSata… but when I restored a backup of my config it went back to booting off internal. Now when I force it to boot off the mSATA its crashing.... Sure would be easy if I could get it to boot from USB again so I could try a proper install as initiated by hardware itself.....
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I have continued to try different flash drives on the off chance of some compatibility issue, but no luck. I am fairly certain that the front USB ports are not working. Of course this may be another red flag that I should abandon this hardware, but I would really prefer to get this up and working again, after all its not that old.
I don't have the laptop with me to attempt another clean install onto the mSATA card. I did do some testing though and I am able to get the unit to boot off CD, but the normal pfSense installer eventually looses its GUI like I would have expected it to during the initialization process.
Has anyone ever converted these USB Images over to an ISO image so that I can attempt a CD install that way? Most of the guides I have found so far to do this seems to assume that its a Windows readable file system, but of course when I plug in my pfSense Flash drive to a PC nothing shows up.
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If no inserted USB drives show up as option 1, then I think you're toast. The drive will show up when inserted whether it is bootable or not. It looks like it is not seeing the USB at all. Be sure the memsticks you are trying are not USB3 but it sounds like you have tried several. Do you have any that light? Do they? The one I am using to test is lit sitting at the Select boot device prompt and is enumerated as 1. USB MSC Drive Generic Flash Disk 8.07.
About the only thing I can think of to get that unit up is to install to the mSATA on another similar system and move it over.
Something certainly seems to be not right there. It is not outside possibility that a problem with the USB would affect both those ports and the eMMC adversely as that is also connected internally via USB.
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Most flash drives I tested never even lit up. One or two would light up and act like it was ready to be accessed on bootup. None would have been USB 3 drives.
I would say without a doubt that my USB ports are dead.
I moved the mSATA to my laptop for a 2nd time and performed another fresh install. This time after restoring my configuration all is appearing stable.
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Can I ask what image file you used to install to the SSD ?
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If I recall correctly, I used the basic x64 ISO to install to the SSD on a laptop. Then when it requested to reboot after the install is when I moved it to the 4860
