Installer wont recognise any drives ** PLEASE HELP **

[benis]

HW: Dell 6400 laptop
Drives: dvd-rw, 250gb HDD internal, and 1gb usb flash

Hi, I booted the latest version(64) from live CD, when I choose (9) to install, then (1) to install to my drive, only "cd0" apprears under "choose installation media". Ok, so I select "cd0" then it just loops me back to the "Nas4Free Install and upgrade options menu".

I hot remove and replaced the harddrive and watched as it was auto recognised as "ad4"
In the shell I ran "fdisk ad4" and is displays (236948 mb) so it must be the right drive.

Why does it not display "ad4" in the install gui?

Thanks!

[armandh]

I am assuming that you are booting from a live CD
the option 9 first choice is where to get the OS
once the live CD is selected a later choice is where to put it

As I recall.

[benis]

thanks for the quick response, I am aware that I need to first select the installation media, then the installation drive, however, after selecting the installations media, it loops back, and asks me which Install I wan to choose (install/full/upgrade/embed) basically taking me back to step1. If I choose (1) again, to install "embedded", It then asks me again, what installation media I want to choose. and again, only "cd0" is visible.

do you have any insight into this issue?

Thanks

[armandh]

bad down load/disk/etc
it should not do that
old CD drives are often a problem
also try a new down load and disk

And, in a senior moment, I forgot the obvious [see next]

[b0ssman]

wipe the disc

http://wiki.nas4free.org/doku.php?id=faq:0129

[benis]

ok... so I downloaded the live usb version and put the image on a 1gb usb. booted from the drive and I ran the "wipe drive script" suggested in the previous post on my harddrive (ada0) and reset the machine, now, only the cd0 and da0 are recognised. but still not ada0. anyone have anymore ideas?

[benis]

ok, I saw this flash for a split second on the screen, does it help at all?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_wNLS ... sp=sharing

[b0ssman]

post the dmesg and smart output.

[gbbg]

having similar issues. Doesn't detect any drives nor installs to another da1, just loops back to the first screen.

[benis]

Ok, I found a workaround. I put my laptops HDD in the USB enclosure I was going to use for the NAS drive. This allowed the installer to see the HDD long enough to install nas4free. After installation was complete I put the drive back in the laptop and booted without issue. I still have a few more tweeks, but most everything is working as it should. I suppose its an issue with the installers ability to detect the SATA controller? not sure though.
Thanks to everyone that helped.

[b0ssman]

just a note.

laptop do not make good nas setups.

quirky hardware and lack of expansion are a big drawback.
for testing its ok.
also take the battery out if you plan on running it permanently.

[equinox]

I was having the same difficulty with my new install today. Tried booting from a USB cd, and it wouldn't offer my USB stick as a destination install location - didn't offer any install locations at all actually, just looped around to the menu. Then I tried the USB memory stick boot with the same problems.

Note that NAS4Free was recognizing the destination stick no problem as I removed and re-inserted it. Formatted the destination stick multiple times, both quick and slow format. No hidden partitions on the stick. Tried two other USB destination sticks.

Finally removed the two PCIe SAS cards from the machine and reduced my computer's RAM to 8GB. This time it found my destination USB stick location first try.

[Timpanogos_Slim]

Thought i should mention, I had the same issue trying to install nas4free 32 bit on a toshiba 1.8" 30gb drive. Yes an ipod style drive (removed from a toshiba mp3 player). Why? I've got several, got adapters to hook them up to 40 pin PATA, and they are a nice low-power boot device. Model number is MK3008GAL.

I tried a lot of the things in this thread and similar threads, including trying other machines with completely different hardware.

What worked finally was installing NAS4Free 9.1.0.1.847 and then upgrading to 9.2.0.1.972.

That suggests to me that a code change between those two versions is at fault.

It's kinda interesting that the installation system can find that drive to install an upgrade on, but not to perform a fresh install on.