Plop is causing failures

[kcallis]

After realizing that FreeNAS 9 (or even 8 for that matter) would not work on my system (something about the umass and issue with the ralink controller), I switch over the N4F latest version. I thought I could slap a 16GB memory stick in my machine, use plop to boot the thumb drive and things would be good to go.

Everytime I boot using the plop CD method, as soon as it seem to be booting, it can't find the kernel. I even tried to sacrifice part of my HD and still ended up with the same issue. I am going to try on other trick to see if that will make it work, but curious to see if anyone else is having this issue.

*** I thought the issue might have been that the machine in question was not 64-bit and was giving issues because I loaded it using the 64 bit version, but turns out the it is a DualCore AMD Athlon 5050e, 2600 MHz (13 x 200) and is capable of doing 64-bit. The question is, do I need to do something special with plop for be able to boot off the USB or did I mistake an entry when I was installing. I have tried to install both embedded as well as full....

[raulfg3]

Please download apropiate ISO or IMG for your need and install on a good USB key, and forget PLOP (not needed):

http://wiki.nas4free.org/doku.php?id=playground:sug

http://wiki.nas4free.org/doku.php?id=faq:0037

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5158

[armandh]

If the hardware has no provision in the bios for USB booting I recommend a small Hdd [under 10 Gb are cheap used]
use the live cd to boot and transfer the embedded OS to the small Hdd, reboot the computer without the cd.
install the drive, setting it to spin down in 5 minutes, as it is not needed after the embedded OS loads to memory during the boot-up.
do not mount it as it is only used during boot. these work http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fujitsu-1-1-GB- ... 5d447bff5f

early hardware bios that will boot from the USB may only boot from one or two on the back
a good alternative with no USB boot is live cd and a usb stick for the config file only.
or for both the OS and config, one of these [512] in an ide port that will boot
http://www.logicsupply.com/categories/f ... sh_modules

usb booting is the least reliable of methods in most hardware
using a floppy plop to boot USB even less so.

the OS is a bit over 200 Mb the configuration file is around 20 Kb

[kcallis]

Unfortunately, I was trying to make use of the 4 SATA drives strictly for data. I might add that I used the live CD to install a boot partition on my on my drives, and I am still having the bootloader giving me an issue about kernel. I am using plop still to boot the data drive (I have another drive that has Windows 7 installed hence me using plop). I will see if I can boot the N4F drive using the BIOS boot options to change the drive, but I don't think that will work. I need to check to see if I can use the Windows 7 bootloader to allow for booting the N4F drive. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated!

[armandh]

now I am really confused about what you are trying to do.
N4F can run in a virtual environment but is designed for stand alone hardware
and it is of little use dual booting except for testing as
nothing in the other boot drive is safe for share transfers just read only copy.
assuming you are using the correct 64 or 32 bit ver, there are problems
if the 7 computer is not using the BIOS IDE configuration but the newer AHCI configuration

[kcallis]

now I am really confused about what you are trying to do.
N4F can run in a virtual environment but is designed for stand alone hardware
and it is of little use dual booting except for testing as
nothing in the other boot drive is safe for share transfers just read only copy.
assuming you are using the correct 64 or 32 bit ver, there are problems
if the 7 computer is not using the BIOS IDE configuration but the newer AHCI configuration

No need for confusion. I have an HP machine that has 4 SATA drive bays. There is no IDE connection to do either a small drive or even a CF card with a IDE connection. I currently have 3 of the 4 drives in play, because the 4th drive is the original drive that has Windows 7 on it. My goal was to use plop to boot off my thumb drive to start N4F on configure the 3 drives, mount the 4th drive to move some data off the drive, and then format and add the drive to the array.

As stated previously, the plop boot of the USB drive continues to not find the kernel, and I have did both embedded as well as the full install to the USB drive (I have a 32G thumb drive in play). I then did a install to one of the 3 sata drives, and just figured I would loose a little data space. Again, because currently I can't just boot because of course, it boots into the Windows 7 and as far as I can tell, I can't edit to Windows 7 bootloader to added booting off the other drive that is holding the N4F configuration. Again, I thought I would use plop bootloader running of the CD to go and boot the drive with N4F configuration. Everything I do that, again, it is looking for kernel. So I am at a loss. I have 3 drives that I can't use, and I am almost a point where I will just use a live-CD and see how things go from there.

[armandh]

buy a cheap sata expansion card for the data drives.
[not for booting]