Dell T7500 will not boot from USB stick

[asavage]

I've been trying to install to a Dell T7500 Precision today, using:

NAS4Free-x64-LiveUSB-10.2.0.2.2235.img

As advised in this post, I've been using Win32DiskImager v0.9.5 to write the above .img file to a pair USB sticks (one SanDisk Cruzer 8Gb, the other a recent vintage PNY 16Gb). The resulting sticks boot OK on my HP dc7100 (circa 2004) but are not recognized at bootable on my T7500 (circa late 2012).

I then used Rufus v2.6 to format the same 8Gb stick to bootable with FreeDOS, and that boots OK on the T7500, confirming that the T7500 is set up correctly to boot from USB.

I am concluding that either Win32DiskImager is not correctly writing the .img file, or the file does not contain code that is recognized by the T7500 as bootable. I'm going to go burn a physical CD instead, but I'd like to try to chase this USB boot problem so others aren't affected in the future.

[alexey123]

Try to boot another motherboard

[JoseMR]

Hello, You may try physdiskwrite + PhysGUI from m0n0wall website, I personally use it and never failed on me before, is just like dd to write disk images to raw disks.

Physdiskwrite + PhysGUI: http://m0n0.ch/wall/physdiskwrite.php

[asavage]

Try to boot another motherboard

Already done, see above:

The resulting sticks boot OK on my HP dc7100 (circa 2004) . . .

. . . try physdiskwrite + PhysGUI . . .

AVG antivirus does not like PhysGUI. It won't say what it doesn't like about it, but it won't let me run it, either. I'm loathe to ignore AVG's advice. I will look at this more tomorrow.

. . .

Just now, I was able to install via CD without incident, but I'd still like to find the cause of not being able to install from a USB stick.

[alexey123]

Try to boot another motherboard

Already done, see above:

The resulting sticks boot OK on my HP dc7100 (circa 2004) . . .

. . . try physdiskwrite + PhysGUI . . .

AVG antivirus does not like PhysGUI. It won't say what it doesn't like about it, but it won't let me run it, either. I'm loathe to ignore AVG's advice. I will look at this more tomorrow.

. . .

Just now, I was able to install via CD without incident, but I'd still like to find the cause of not being able to install from a USB stick.

If you can boot amother MB from your flash, tour bootable image is OK
Sometines Dell make possible boot only from FAT formatted partition. Tou can check issue very simple - download FreeeBSD image http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/rele ... mstick.img or http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/rele ... mstick.img , write it into usb flash and try to boot from it.
If boot not success - you have such MB
In this case you must rebuilt NAS4Free with fat boot

[armandh]

Dells proprietary bios was written for cost savings [IMHO]
where the old hardware will boot USB it is often not all the usb.
closest to the round KB plug was usually a good one.
same for the IDE, usually only the primary would boot
with those that would boot USB
one might need a usb stick FAT formatted not over 2Gb

old inflexible hardware is best booted as it was originally.
I used salvaged, win 95 era, drives too small for a modern desktop OS
installed and set to spin down 5 minutes after the N4F embedded boot to RAM.

my last build a small older SSD on sata #1 stores the embedded OS, config, and swap.

[asavage]

This particular T7500 Precision workstation is three years old -- not terribly old by my standards. And this model is not a consumer model, like an Inspiron.

Using PhysGUI/physdiskwrite yielded a working, bootable 16Gb USB stick using the leftmost front panel USB socket. I am concluding that there is a problem when using Win32DiskWriter 0.9.5 with this particular file and this particular hardware, and I'm willing to leave it at that. For future readers having problems creating a bootable USB stick with the Dell Precision line of computers, try using the alternate USB writing utility, or use the CD method; both worked here.

[armandh]

and save that CD
they can put the OS on most any boot medium and may be very handy in an emergency recovery

[ChriZathens]

Win32disk imager has failed me in the past .
Physdiskwrite never...
And just fyi about dell, I have a poweredge t110 which boots just fine with either of its two internal usb ports and also from external ones ( haven't tried all of them, though...)

[cudak888]

Not to bump a year-old thread up, but this is one of those unusual cases where adding to a pre-existing thread may make more sense than a new one:

Since this thread is the first thing that comes up if you Google "Nas4Free T7500" (or any variant thereof relating to USB stick problems), I thought I'd mention that T7500's are also prone to USB boot issues relating to the riser board (the one that contains the second processor and memory) sagging.

I spent a good three evenings trying to figure out why my Nas4free live USB which works on everything from my Z800's to an earlier Precision 690 kept freezing (mostly at "Starting syslogd") when booting, and would only proceed with the loader if another USB device (keyboard) were repeatedly removed and plugged back in (on occasion, this would be met with a continuous, stepped-pitch piercing noise from the onboard microphone when doing so).

So I pulled the riser board. Problem solved. I repeated this multiple times and was able to get consistent results: When the riser is in, it gives problems.

The problem is due to the riser board sagging and not making good contact with the motherboard. A fellow on the Dell forums fashioned a fix for it, and posted an expanded explanation on another forum:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-fo ... t/19589143
http://nissandiesel.dyndns.org/viewtopi ... 199#p23199

I'll probably run mine single-processor just for the sake of reliability.

-Kurt

[asavage]

I had already applied the sagging riser fix before I had begun this thread, but I'm glad to have this opportunity to remind Dell T7500/T7600 users that this is a recurring problem with the second CPU/memory riser.

My riser fix thread (with pics).

[ChriZathens]

Nissan diesels don't like my IP addresses...
They say they are banned permanently...
Tried with wi-fi and 4g..
Perhaps because I have a Toyota diesel...

[asavage]

Probably, yes

A lot of IPs have been banned over the years; I have a moderator that think banning IPs helps keep the spamming down. Sorry about that.

[cudak888]

I thought I'd add an addendum here: There is a possibility that the riser itself may not be the sole contributor to nas4free problems on the T7500.

While my problem may or may not be isolated, I discovered that the machine would not reliably boot with three drives attached (whether on the SAS/6i integrated RAID controller or the Intel SATA controller), and would most commonly hang at "starting background file system check in 60 seconds" followed by a scream like a banshee out of the internal speaker - which would only shut up and move forward with some taps of the Enter button on a keyboard connected to it.

I spent AGES trying to pinpoint the problem, discovered one bad SATA cable, pulled all my drives out of the Kingwin pass-through dock and connected them directly, shut down the controllers independently, reflashed the onboard SAS/6i (which is an LSI SAS1068E) RAID controller to IT mode, and nothing seemed to work.

That is, until I turned off hyperthreading in the BIOS. Now it works perfectly - with the Kingwin pass-through box and the drives connected to either controller.

Go figure. I hope for the sake of others that this is exclusively a problem with my T7500, because - if not - this thing is one hell of a buggy, unreliable POS in comparison to the older Precision 690. May be a lot faster in principle as a computer, but my 690 sure delivers files quick on 10gbe.

-Kurt

[asavage]

Thanks, Kurt, for that tip!