Booting Unraid from a virtual SCSI drive

Warning

This is an experimental configuration. It is not supported by Limetech. It might not work for your system.

Note

• This works for VirtIO SCSI devices (e.g., virtual SCSI drives in Proxmox) in Unraid 7. Support for other SATA/SCSI drives (e.g., physical drives) requires a custom kernel that includes the relevant driver.
• You still need a flash drive connected, but it is only used for the license.

Instructions

1. Attach a virtual SCSI drive to the VM.
2. Create a single FAT32 partition on the drive:

   echo 'type=0c' | sfdisk /dev/sdX
   

3. Format the partition, setting the label to UNRAID:

   mkfs.vfat -n UNRAID /dev/sdX1
   

4. Stop the array.
5. Copy all files from the flash drive to the new partition:

   mkdir /tmp/UNRAID
   mount /dev/sdX1 /tmp/UNRAID
   cp -R /boot/* /tmp/UNRAID/
   

6. If you are booting with MBR:

   sh /tmp/UNRAID/syslinux/make_bootable_linux.sh /dev/sdb
   sfdisk -A /dev/sdX 1
   

7. Shut down the VM.
8. Detach the flash drive from the VM.
9. Start the VM. The system will report a registration error at this point; this is expected.
10. Reattach the flash drive to the VM.
11. Reformat the flash drive to remove all files:

    mkfs.vfat -n UNRAID /dev/sdY1
    

12. Reboot. Unraid now shows as registered.

Result

• /dev/sda is the virtual drive that has the Unraid boot files (single VFAT partition, labeled UNRAID, with all of the files that would usually be on the flash drive)
• /dev/sdc is the USB drive attached to the license. It has a single VFAT partition, also labeled UNRAID, but has no files.
• System is licensed and array is started.

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