NAS, Build your own

[Just married]

I found a web site, Build a NAS Device With an Old PC and Free Software - www.smallbusinesscomputing.com

that explains how to build your own NAS storage system using the Free BSD NAS. I have followed the procedure as outlined in the link above, created the iso cd using the iso recording utility. Thinks are coming along well up to a point. My old computer has three hard drives a CDROM, no operating system. The above process using the .iso file downloaded should run the system from memory.

My hang up is that I cannot find a way to contact the designer directly they refer to a forum that will answer my questions but no one has responded to my questions. When I start up the old pc it looks like it is going to setup as adverstised, however it gets to a point where the program is expecting a reply from the "server" I am suspecting it is looking for an IP address. I use a 4 port Linksys router that serves three computers and a wireless access point for my laptop.

Does anyone have any experience with this process? I have lots of hard drives containng lots of storage is my reason.

 

[Tinkerdog]

I found a web site, Build a NAS Device With an Old PC and Free Software - www.smallbusinesscomputing.com

that explains how to build your own NAS storage system using the Free BSD NAS. I have followed the procedure as outlined in the link above, created the iso cd using the iso recording utility. Thinks are coming along well up to a point. My old computer has three hard drives a CDROM, no operating system. The above process using the .iso file downloaded should run the system from memory.

My hang up is that I cannot find a way to contact the designer directly they refer to a forum that will answer my questions but no one has responded to my questions. When I start up the old pc it looks like it is going to setup as adverstised, however it gets to a point where the program is expecting a reply from the "server" I am suspecting it is looking for an IP address. I use a 4 port Linksys router that serves three computers and a wireless access point for my laptop.

Does anyone have any experience with this process? I have lots of hard drives containng lots of storage is my reason.

If you can't find any help with FREENAS (I have no experience in this), you might want to check out the NAS called AMAHI....

Amahi Home Server - Making Home Networking Simple (version 6) - you can also look for and download version 5 which is totally free - version 6 is basically free but the apps start to incur a cost).

 

[pparks1]

If I remember correctly, FreeNas should just pull a DHCP address from your router. I think once it boots and beeps, you can press ESC to get to the console where you can configure your network settings.

I've used FreeNAS for projects in the past and it's a solid product. These days, I use OpenFiler...which does the same type of thing..I just prefer their setup with regards to iSCSI and that's typically what I use it for.

 

[Just married]

NAS free

I tried your suggestion about hitting the escape key, same thing. Here are the screen I am getting.

Managed PC boot agent (MBA) Copyright 1999 Lanworks Technology Co. subsidary of 3M Corp/ All rights reserved/

001026F1F24
BootP...........

Nework Boot Aborted
Press any key to continue

Then this appears very qickly after the above:

Initializing MBA press any key...

Then everything above repeats as long as I leave the computer on. Hitting the escape key at any time during the above text it repeats the same thing. I have re-recorded the FreeNas I downloaded using the .iso utility from the same group, Source Forge.

 

[pparks1]

It seems like your ISO for FreeNAS is not booting. Try downloading the 1st link from this page, burning it to a cd and giving it a shot
FreeNAS - Browse /FreeNAS-8 at SourceForge.net

From what you posted above, your system cannot find a boot device, so it's trying to perform a network boot. FreeNAS is not running at all.

Also, be sure in the BIOS that your boot order includes your CD Drive or that your CD drive is listed before network boots.

 

[Just married]

NAS FREE

Sorry to be such a pest. I did download the iso file from your link, it was bigger than the other one I downloaded. Right clicked the download and burned the image to a CD. Put it in the old computer, turned it on. the same thing. This time I swapped the nic card for another one, same thing. These nic cards I am using are older probably 5 years or so and are only the 10/100 variety not the faster ones. I just want to use this NAS for a lot of files and images, 50GB would last a long time for my purposes. I have the old computer setup with three hard drives and the CDROM. Is it possible that this free NAS will not supoort the older nic cards.

If I cannot get this thing to work I have some copies of Windows NT4 then later Windows 2000 Pro. I remember having an aufull time setting up the home network using NT4. It was a litte easier with Windows 2000 Pro. Any ideas there.? If i go this route, what are your suggestons for anti-virus and or mallware protection.

 

[pparks1]

This has nothing to do with your network cards. You computer is trying to boot from the hard drive which has nothing on it. Then it may, or may NOT, try to boot from the CD. Eventually it gives up and tries to boot from the network. That is what your computer is trying to do in my opinion. It's NOT booting from that cd at all...which means that it's not even trying to boot or run Free NAS.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Try burning the .iso file with an actual burning app, and not the included Windows burner. But, like pparks1 said, it sounds like your computer isn't finding any bootable devices.