Installaion on HP Mediasmart EX475

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I have searched the internet and cannot find a working solution
So far I have done the following using V9.3
created a USB boot disk from Image booted ex475 with first drive out. - nothing
I booted this USB on a different pc and it does work I returned it to the ex475 and still nothing
I then installed freenas on one of the hard drives through a PC, returned the hdd to the first slot still nothing,
All other hard drives were removed except the USB drive and the first hard drive in the hopes that at least one of them would boot, after leaving it for half an hour just in case something was happening, there was no network response which means something is holding up the boot process.
I would like to get this going without having to spend a ton of money on vga clables, what I can't understand is that I can install server 2012 unattended through the usb key onto the first hard drive
And ideas ?

 

[gpsguy]

Try searching this forum: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?search/1645498/&q=ex475&o=relevance

You don't mention the hardware specs (see the forum rules in red at the top of the page), but as I recall they are inadequate for FreeNAS.

Read the FreeNAS doc's for it's minimum requirements. Server 2012 doesn't need the horsepower that FreeNAS does.

 

[Rick67]

All hope is not lost...

I've been trying the same thing.
I have the extension cable (vga only) which helped me a lot.
You need to access the bios to set the 4 drives in IDE mode (instead of Raid). Without it only slot 1 and 3 are accessible from other OS.

Others things to consider:
The network card (SIS191) is not well supported in Debian, Ubuntu (I never was able to make it work)... The only OS version that seems to support it (besides Windows) is FreeBsd,

A usb boot key can be plugged it at the back at the bottom port, but it needs to have MBR with a fat partition to boot anything from it. A USB key with an IMG flashed on it won't work. If the USB key at the bottom is not valid then it goes to the slot 1 then the SMI drive which is the recovery OS as you know.

An extended sata cable can be connected to the top hd slot and will allow you to connect a cdrom drive instead of USB key.
Some ISO live cd work others not, the utility Rufus 2.1.649 will helped you out building a bootable usb key with an ISO os.

You can have a taste of FreeNAS (even latest version) by flashing the IMG directly to a HDD, then plug it in the Slot 1 (all USB free). The uncompressed IMG will use 2 GB and the hd will have 4 primary partitions so you can't use the remaining space for anything else.

Since I want to use all 4 slots this solution is not optimal for me.
My next target is to try the internal SMI drive with a smaller IMG, (after a backup of its original OS). I'll leave an update with the results

Good luck
I've spent too much time with this beast, I'm not about to give it up.

 

[onus]

All hope is not lost...

I've been trying the same thing.
I have the extension cable (vga only) which helped me a lot.
You need to access the bios to set the 4 drives in IDE mode (instead of Raid). Without it only slot 1 and 3 are accessible from other OS.

Others things to consider:
The network card (SIS191) is not well supported in Debian, Ubuntu (I never was able to make it work)... The only OS version that seems to support it (besides Windows) is FreeBsd,

A usb boot key can be plugged it at the back at the bottom port, but it needs to have MBR with a fat partition to boot anything from it. A USB key with an IMG flashed on it won't work. If the USB key at the bottom is not valid then it goes to the slot 1 then the SMI drive which is the recovery OS as you know.

An extended sata cable can be connected to the top hd slot and will allow you to connect a cdrom drive instead of USB key.
Some ISO live cd work others not, the utility Rufus 2.1.649 will helped you out building a bootable usb key with an ISO os.

You can have a taste of FreeNAS (even latest version) by flashing the IMG directly to a HDD, then plug it in the Slot 1 (all USB free). The uncompressed IMG will use 2 GB and the hd will have 4 primary partitions so you can't use the remaining space for anything else.

Since I want to use all 4 slots this solution is not optimal for me.
My next target is to try the internal SMI drive with a smaller IMG, (after a backup of its original OS). I'll leave an update with the results

Good luck
I've spent too much time with this beast, I'm not about to give it up.

Any luck with this yet? I'm joining the fray! I have an ex470 and a ps2/vga cable. but I can not get this badboy to boot Freenas for the life of me.
If i install any usb w/ an os on it it just hangs at boot, and disables the keyboad. w/o usb plugged in i can access the bios change boot order everything.
what do you mean by "IDE Mode" and how do I change this, and will it help? Also i have it all pulled apart so the sata board is not even plugged in, would that make a difference when booting?

 

[HoneyBadger]

Everyone in here should be made thoroughly aware that the HP MediaSmart WHS storage boxes are very, very poor choices for a ZFS machine.

They use non-ECC RAM, have poor driver support under any non-Windows OS, and not enough RAM to safely operate FreeNAS.

 

[onus]

Honestly I got mine for basically nothing, and it doesn't have an OS, so I'm looking at my options... what would you suggest I do with it?

 

[HoneyBadger]

Honestly I got mine for basically nothing, and it doesn't have an OS, so I'm looking at my options... what would you suggest I do with it?

Something like OpenMediaVault or toying about with Linux would work. ZFS and the OSes it run on are very particular about the hardware it plays nice with. Restoring from a WHS disc is an option if you can get your hands on the OEM restore media as well.

I'm not saying that FreeNAS/NAS4Free won't eventually boot and "work" on the system, but it's a perilous arrangement at best so I wouldn't put data you care about on it.

 

[onus]

thanks! I'll give it a try :)

 

[NodakBarnes]

Windows Server 2008R2 Core works nicely for me on EX470.