Proxmox 5.4 USB install - no cdrom found, 5.3 working OK

[aa007]

Hi,

I have been banging my head for last 3 hours trying to install Proxmox using the ISO 5.4-1 on Fujitsu Primergy RX200 S7 - every time I ended up on screen saying no cdrom found. I tried Ether, rufus, Easy2Boot - nothing has worked.
Then I have stumbled onto this page: http://rmprepusb.blogspot.com/2014/03/add-proxmox-isos-to-easy2boot.html - last line is saying "Note: proxmox 5.4 seems to be broken. It won't even boot if I dd the ISO to a USB drive."
So I went ahead, downloaded Proxmox 5.3 ISO and indeed everything is working fine. So there is definitely something wrong with 5.4 installer.
I hope this topic will save someone some time and maybe it will get fixed.

 

[t.lamprecht]

Hi,

We tested here on all possible hardware, simple dd to USB, etcher, virtual media through IPMI on different platforms, EFI, legacy bios, ... all, well, just works here straight out of the box..

The build system didn't change either between the 5.3-2 ISO and the 5.4 ISO, also a gdisk -l on both checks out:

gdisk -l /mnt/pve/iso/template/iso/proxmox-ve_5.3-2.iso
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.3

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /mnt/pve/iso/template/iso/proxmox-ve_5.3-2.iso: 1314824 sectors, 642.0 MiB
Sector size (logical): 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): B81AF677-8AD0-4A22-9FA6-FEE4FDA8BDE1
Partition table holds up to 176 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 20 and ends at sector 63
First usable sector is 64, last usable sector is 1314778
Partitions will be aligned on 4-sector boundaries
Total free space is 3 sectors (1.5 KiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1              64             539   238.0 KiB   0700  Gap0
   2             540            6299   2.8 MiB     EF00  EFI boot partition
   3            6300         1314175   638.6 MiB   AF00  HFSPLUS
   4         1314176         1314775   300.0 KiB   0700  Gap1
 ~  gdisk -l /mnt/pve/iso/template/iso/proxmox-ve_5.4-1.iso
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.3

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /mnt/pve/iso/template/iso/proxmox-ve_5.4-1.iso: 1341952 sectors, 655.3 MiB
Sector size (logical): 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 2CBA5013-16E7-4D41-B75D-544A6474498B
Partition table holds up to 176 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 20 and ends at sector 63
First usable sector is 64, last usable sector is 1341906
Partitions will be aligned on 4-sector boundaries
Total free space is 3 sectors (1.5 KiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1              64             539   238.0 KiB   0700  Gap0
   2             540            6299   2.8 MiB     EF00  EFI boot partition
   3            6300         1341303   651.9 MiB   AF00  HFSPLUS
   4         1341304         1341903   300.0 KiB   0700  Gap1

So I really though that's just some weird firmware issue or the like when I saw the first reports (and at least one was in fact solved with a FW update, IIRC)
But with a few more reports something points really to the ISO.. So what I could imagine is newer grub/kernel, but at least grub did not get upgraded either...
I'll try to re-think what could've caused the changes, though.

Could you try it over any IPMI, if available, the server is not the newest (from release date), AFAICT, do you use EFI or legacy boot?

 

[aa007]

I have upgraded all hardware components before trying to install Proxmox. I want to use ZFS so I am using the Legacy mode. The server isnt newest but still has support for 2 more years though.
I will try to switch to EFI for testing.

 

[t.lamprecht]

I have upgraded all hardware components before trying to install Proxmox. I want to use ZFS so I am using the Legacy mode. The server isnt newest but still has support for 2 more years though.

OK, just wanted to rule out things...

I will try to switch to EFI for testing.

Thanks.

 

[Jack Freeman]

OK, just wanted to rule out things...



Thanks.

Had same issues using unetbootin in linux and lili under windows, as you correctly say, DD works so looks to be the way the former handle boot loader creation, using dd I only see the standard usb boot option where the installer works but have an additional uefi option when created using unet or lili, which appears to be confusing pc boot function, in file manager I could not see any major changes to installed files on the boot usb. Hope this help somewhat.

 

[aa007]

I have tried to boot in UEFI mode, but I see the same error. @t.lamprecht

 

[mcbarlo]

I confirm the same issue. Trying on UFEI and Legacy without success. Server is new Lenovo SR590. Of course 5.3 works fine.

 

[Carmelo Carrillo]

Install from USB Stick
The Proxmox VE installation media is a hybrid ISO image, working in two ways:

• An ISO image file ready to burn on CD
• A raw sector (IMG) image file ready to directly copy to flash media (USB Stick)

Using USB sticks is faster and more environmental friendly and therefore the recommended way to install Proxmox VE.

Prepare a USB flash drive as install medium
In order to boot the installation media, copy the ISO image to a USB media.

You need at least a 1 GB USB media.

Using UNetbootin or Rufus does not work.
Make sure that the USB media is not mounted and does not contain any important data.
Instructions for GNU/Linux
You can simply use dd on UNIX like systems. First download the ISO image, then plug in the USB stick. You need to find out what device name gets assigned to the USB stick (see below). Then run:

dd if=proxmox-ve_*.iso of=/dev/XYZ bs=1M
Be sure to replace /dev/XYZ with the correct device name.
Be very careful, and do not overwrite the hard disk!
Find Correct USB Device Name
You can compare the last lines of dmesg command before and after the insertion, or use the lsblk command. Open a terminal and run:

lsblk
Then plug in your USB media and run the command again:

lsblk
A new device will appear, and this is the USB device you want to use.

Instructions for OSX
Open the terminal (query Terminal in Spotlight).

Convert the .iso file to .img using the convert option of hdiutil for example.

hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o proxmox-ve_*.dmg proxmox-ve_*.iso
OS X tends to put the .dmg ending on the output file automatically.
To get the current list of devices run the command again:

diskutil list
Now insert your USB flash media and run this command again to determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/diskX).

diskutil list

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskX
replace X with the disk number from the last command.
sudo dd if=proxmox-ve_*.dmg of=/dev/rdiskX bs=1m
rdiskX, instead of diskX, in the last command is intended, this will increase write speed
Instructions for Windows
Download Etcher, select the ISO and your USB Drive.

If this doesn’t work, alternatively use the OSForensics USB installer.

Boot your server from USB media
Connect your USB media to your server and make sure that the server boots from USB (see server BIOS). Then follow the installation wizard.

 

[Jack Freeman]

Using UNetbootin or Rufus does not work.

Thanks for that confirmation of my findings, despite my working assumptions as to 'why' it was wrong. I had at least correctly ascertained that the problem was being caused by the 'universal usb installers' the good old basic 'dd' works a treat. I am incredibly impressed with just how simple and functional Proxmox has proven to be, from noob to passable junior admin on my own, just from documentation, this forum and the very occasional gargle search for the tricky bits in around 2 weeks. BRAVO! ENCOURS! ENCOURS!
**edit - if using dd in terminal scares the pants off you, the vast majority of linux distro's ship with gui dd apps either built in or in the main repo's which are pretty idiot proofed so take a lot of the brown trouser hazard of drive wiping using dd in the command line!

 

[aa007]

@t.lamprecht - i have found one interresting thing. On 5.3 iso, the loader is searching for cdrom on /dev/sdd and its working. On 5.4 its trying to find cdrom on /dev/sdc and that fails - maybe its not related, but it seems odd to me.

 

[zoran]

I had same problem (no cdrom found) with 5.4.1. Then I tried rufus with DD mode and it worked.
I am using X9SRL-F m/b and installed in usb boot mode through IPMI. UEFI boot option was also visible.

 

[t.lamprecht]

@t.lamprecht - i have found one interresting thing. On 5.3 iso, the loader is searching for cdrom on /dev/sdd and its working. On 5.4 its trying to find cdrom on /dev/sdc and that fails - maybe its not related, but it seems odd to me.

hmm, this is a good hint.. Is the CDRom device present? You should be able to look at /dev when using the "debug mode" from grub menu...

 

[aa007]

@t.lamprecht - I have to take that back. I had tried to replace RAID controller and in the process I had different number of disks between, so that was false positive. I tried to compare the last entries in dmesg output but they look identical - so I guess some libraries / binaries got upgraded and its causing this? I can try to help you to debug it this week, but I have to move this machine into production next week so there is not much time.

 

[t.lamprecht]

Install from USB Stick
The Proxmox VE installation media is a hybrid ISO image, working in two ways:

• An ISO image file ready to burn on CD
• A raw sector (IMG) image file ready to directly copy to flash media (USB Stick)

Using USB sticks is faster and more environmental friendly and therefore the recommended way to install Proxmox VE.

Prepare a USB flash drive as install medium
In order to boot the installation media, copy the ISO image to a USB media.

You need at least a 1 GB USB media.

Using UNetbootin or Rufus does not work.
Make sure that the USB media is not mounted and does not contain any important data.
Instructions for GNU/Linux
You can simply use dd on UNIX like systems. First download the ISO image, then plug in the USB stick. You need to find out what device name gets assigned to the USB stick (see below). Then run:

dd if=proxmox-ve_*.iso of=/dev/XYZ bs=1M
Be sure to replace /dev/XYZ with the correct device name.
Be very careful, and do not overwrite the hard disk!
Find Correct USB Device Name
You can compare the last lines of dmesg command before and after the insertion, or use the lsblk command. Open a terminal and run:

lsblk
Then plug in your USB media and run the command again:

lsblk
A new device will appear, and this is the USB device you want to use.

Instructions for OSX
Open the terminal (query Terminal in Spotlight).

Convert the .iso file to .img using the convert option of hdiutil for example.

hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o proxmox-ve_*.dmg proxmox-ve_*.iso
OS X tends to put the .dmg ending on the output file automatically.
To get the current list of devices run the command again:

diskutil list
Now insert your USB flash media and run this command again to determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/diskX).

diskutil list

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskX
replace X with the disk number from the last command.
sudo dd if=proxmox-ve_*.dmg of=/dev/rdiskX bs=1m
rdiskX, instead of diskX, in the last command is intended, this will increase write speed
Instructions for Windows
Download Etcher, select the ISO and your USB Drive.

If this doesn’t work, alternatively use the OSForensics USB installer.

Boot your server from USB media
Connect your USB media to your server and make sure that the server boots from USB (see server BIOS). Then follow the installation wizard.

That's a straight copy from our docs...:
https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-pve-installation.html#_install_from_usb_stick

 

[t.lamprecht]

so I guess some libraries / binaries got upgraded and its causing this?

That's also my guess, as else it's not really explainable.. I'll try to do a full diff between the package versions of 5.3 and 5.4, maybe we get some pointers..
udev could be a possibility, but not to sure... Just to ensure I compare the correct ISOs, you tried with 5.3-2 (second ISO, rebuild because of the APT security issues from begin of the year), not the 5.3-1 (first ISO release from December 2018)?

 

[aa007]

@t.lamprecht - yup, i am using 5.3-2 and 5.4-1

 

[t.lamprecht]

It'd would be great if one of you which has this issues with the 5.4 ISO could try out the new Proxmox VE 6 beta 1 ISO, downloadable here:
http://download.proxmox.com/iso/proxmox-ve_6.0-BETA-1.iso

It is a bit more flexible in what it can detect as bootable CDRom after the first boot stage...
If it still does not work try Debugging mode and at the prompt after "no boot device / cdrom found" do a

cat skipped-devs.txt

there and post it here (text or screenshot)

 

[sourceminer]

Hey Guys same issue here with version 6. Here is my output as asked for

 

[sourceminer]

Turns out it was a bad download.

 

[t.lamprecht]

Your usb device has a read error and a found ISO but wrong ID means normally that something is a bit fishy

EDIT: ah, saw your followup post a bit too late, sorry.