Can't find /boot/zfsloader

I recently installed FreeBSD 12.2, Root on ZFS, on a DELL R540 with a H330 raid card.


I just rebooted the machine and was presented with this error.

What can I do to find out what went wrong and can I fix it?

1611870861827.png
 
Did you add hw.mfi.mrsas_enable="1" to /boot/device.hints?
 
Yes. The machine has been running for a month and has been rebooted several times.
Until yesterday when I rebooted it and got this error.
 
I changed the network configuration to setup link aggregation.

4 disks in total configured as RAID10.

I've booted from the install CD exited to shell and executed zpool import which shows the following...

1611913812392.png
 
I've imported the pool as follows...

mkdir /tmp/zzz
zpool import -R /tmp/zzz zroot

/tmp/zzz contains tmp, usr, var and zroot directories.

Should boot be in there as well?
 
Yes, the pool itself looks fine. But the boot pictures are showing I/O errors, that causes the pool to fail to load. Which in turn means the system can't find the files in /boot/ because it has no access to the pool where these files are stored. The files not being found is a symptom, the cause are the I/O errors.
 
Are these disks connected via a SAS port extender? Those things can cause issues too. I've had that happen on several occasions where the port extender was failing and this caused random disks to fail. Yes, even on brand spanking new hardware.
 
Are these disks connected via a SAS port extender? Those things can cause issues too. I've had that happen on several occasions where the port extender was failing and this caused random disks to fail. Yes, even on brand spanking new hardware.
No the drives are plugged in to a a DELL R540.
 
If it's a chassis with more then 8 disk slots it likely has a port extender on the backplane. The PERC H330 is a 2x4 port card.
That's true. I've just moved the disks from bays 1,2,3,4 to 5,6,7,8. No difference.
If its a hardware fault how am I able to import the zpool from the live cd?
 
Are those SATA drives by any chance? I've seen some SATA drives with slow spinup/powerup times where the SAS-controller didn't wait for their response and already handed everything over to the BIOS/UEFI before the drives were fully initialized. SAS drives always were perfectly fine.
Booting from those SATA disks then failed, but booting from a flashdisk didn't show any obvious problems as the live-system probes all devices again at a much later time.

Search for some option in the BIOS to allow for a longer spinup-time at boot, I bet Dell has such an option too (supermicro definitely does, even on a per-controller-basis IIRC).
And I don't think this crap found its way into server-BIOS, but if it has, disable all "fast boot" or similar options and let the BIOS do a proper, full POST.
 
Are those SATA drives by any chance? I've seen some SATA drives with slow spinup/powerup times where the SAS-controller didn't wait for their response and already handed everything over to the BIOS/UEFI before the drives were fully initialized. SAS drives always were perfectly fine.
Booting from those SATA disks then failed, but booting from a flashdisk didn't show any obvious problems as the live-system probes all devices again at a much later time.

Search for some option in the BIOS to allow for a longer spinup-time at boot, I bet Dell has such an option too (supermicro definitely does, even on a per-controller-basis IIRC).
And I don't think this crap found its way into server-BIOS, but if it has, disable all "fast boot" or similar options and let the BIOS do a proper, full POST.
Yes they are SATA drives. I'll have a look in the BIOS.
 
I couldn't find anything in the BIOS that made this system boot.

I replaced the PERC H330 with a PERC HBA330 and the system booted.
I've shutdown the system and powered it back on several times and it continues to boot.

Thank you for the assistance.
 
BTW, my impression is that, unlike with for example, AMD/ATI graphics cards, there seems no compatibility matrix table for host adapters.
Only in some release notes one can find a list.
The 12.0 Release list does not contain either of the Perc adapters used by the OP; 12.1 and 12.2 seem not to have updated hardware compatibility lists.
Where to submit success/failure reports so one can know in advance whether a particular hardware can be expected to work with FreeBSD (or not)?
 
The 12.0 Release list does not contain either of the Perc adapters used by the OP; 12.1 and 12.2 seem not to have updated hardware compatibility lists.
Dell and HP often use rebranded LSI cards. Not all Dell PERC cards are based on LSI (now Avago or Broadcom, I lost track) though. It's not specific cards or brands that are supported, it's the chipsets on those cards that's supported.
 
Back
Top