Topic: Installation from usb drive

[TerryF]

Sorry for your troubles but this all suggest there is a hardware issue somewhere, why? because this issue appears to be isolated to your system?

Can only suggest to check all hardware, cables etc etc and it seems to be related to your new HD, do you have an old HD you can swap and try?

and as an afterthought what are your BIOS SATA settings etc

[guest22]

I agree with Terry.

[tlicht]

*LOL* doesn't everybody? I have loads of old disks - also some still working... I'll dig one up, but now I have to attend to my garden a while... 

and the BIOS SATA settings are:


and many many thanks for you caring!

[TerryF]

Recycle we are all conservationists

Note post by Stephdl
-if the hard-drive was used by another system, erase it with dd and a live-cd
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx  "x" being drive letter of subject HD

Problem is you need a live system to do it: any live cd will do..

It just ensures drive is zeroed if it has been used previously...

Goode Luck, I think you need it

[Stefano]

maybe I'm missing the point, but I installed many SME's (8.1 too) from usb..
I simply used unetbootin to create a bootable usb key from SME's iso, copied the iso intself into the root of usb key, booted my server from usb, choosen "hard-disk" and the usb's partition (/dev/sdbe1 in my case..)

NEVER had a single issue..

HTH

[tlicht]

For the record:
I did try all of the above plus some with poor results until yesterday - then for some reason I managed to install 9 Rc1 from a cd. Wow!!!
However when rebooting it got stuck on the opening screen with a file not found error. Having become bold by this semi success, I again tried to install from dvd with 8.1 uppacked in the normal way with the .iso image added and this time with

Code: [Select]

sme raid=none on the command line. Success!!!
So I am up and running again, copying back tons of data that I at least had backed up.

A problem for the near fuiture is if I can just connect another drive in order to get raid1 since I installed with the no raid option - I'll soon find out 

[TerryF]

A problem for the near fuiture is if I can just connect another drive in order to get raid1 since I installed with the no raid option - I'll soon find out 

That should not happen, you have an issue with your system.

I would be a tad nervous that it is all going to just stop at the drop of a hat.

However when rebooting it got stuck on the opening screen with a file not found error. Having become bold by this semi success, I again tried to install from dvd with 8.1 uppacked in the normal way with the .iso image added and this time with

Code: [Select]

sme raid=none on the command line. Success!!!

What do you mean "unpacked in the normal way"

[tlicht]

OK, maybe not very well put - the iso image is an archive file of an optical disk. When you burn it to the disk you get all the files an folders laid out as originally authored. Obviously the 8.1 installation does not recognise that all the files are on the disk unless you also add the iso image in archive format to the dvd.
At least my version didn't.. I got the
     Device /dev/sdb1 does not appear to contain SME Server CDROM images
as I wrote in the beginning of this thread.

Regarding my system - I have run it for several years without a hitch - until recently when the disks started to get issues (WD green fish egg 2TB). WD now maintains that those are not really meant for file server use - for that purpose the red version should be used, so those are the ones I am installing the SME server on....

[TerryF]

and there is the issue, I and AFAIK, everyone else has never had to do what you describe to use a DVD/CD, USB yes with a SME8 iso as described in the wiki, but never using a CD/DVD burnt in the usual way.

Good Luck.
 

[tlicht]

Sorry, I got a little confused by the many trials to get the SME server installed - on checking the dvd I used successfully it does not contain an extra iso image. As you say those were required on the usb install trials.

[stephdl]

I worry that you have a hardware issue on you MB or something like that. Never heard that we need to do what you did. Maybe the Hard drive you bought may have a problem also, a friend has had some issues to install sme with a bad HD. Unfortunately it was the sda and the sme doesn't like that kind of issue.

I'm quite sure of what i'm writing : You have a hardware issue

[TerryF]

Sorry, I got a little confused by the many trials to get the SME server installed - on checking the dvd I used successfully it does not contain an extra iso image. As you say those were required on the usb install trials.

Glad to hear that was getting a little worried there for a while LOL..

Hope it all works out, I urge you to conduct a rigours fault finding session and try and isolate what is causing the probs..a pain in the you know what but the unknowns on these infernal machines can become big gotchas. 

Addendum: is your CD/DVD sata or ide

[tlicht]

The cd/dvd player I used in the SME server is IDE - it is not normally there, I just connected it for the installation, so it will be removed as soon as I collect courage enough to add the second hard drive (red fish eggs - identical to the one where sme is installed).

I have done a lenghty memory check on the server without finding errors.... the cpu seems to run ok.... I even updated the bios... live cds seemed to work ok. I did run some hard drive checks with UBCD - no errors and also erased the partitions that seemed to have got there, which might actually have been what rectified the install problems.

I still imagine that the former hard drives started to give up due to age (they were made in December 2010) which was what made me get new disks and reinstall. So the rest of the hardware might be ok.
Why the installation was so troublesome I have no clue.

Or maybe I am just too lazy to - well what? I do actually have another motherboard and cpu both still boxed, exactly the same as those running the SME server, so not changing to those might be lazyness.... 

Anyway, when it looked darkest with this installatiion I started to contemplate to get a ready made NAS... but now I imagine that I'll stick to this setup.

[TerryF]

No worries, enjoy.
TerryF