OptiPlex 9020 SFF refuses to boot OS

Question

I bought a refurbished Optiplex 9020 SFF to make it my pfSense box. I disabled Secure Boot, enabled Legacy ROMs, changed Boot List Option from UEFI to Legacy, then changed boot order with USB Storage Device in first position and the hard drive second. TPM Security was unchecked and I left it that way.

Exiting from the BIOS setup screen made the PC restart, then boot off USB where I had inserted the pfSense installation usb stick. Installation to hard drive was easy and finished quickly. At the end of the installation process, I selected reboot from the available options. From here on the PC fails to boot. Turning the PC off then on with the USB stick also fails to boot from USB. The only way I can get back in was if I powered the unit off, short the RTC reset (RTCRST) jumper then power on. At this point the display advises "Invalid configuration information - please run SETUP program" and "Time-of-day not set - please run SETUP program". I can update the date and time, but I don't know anything else that needs to change.

Just in case it was the Boot List Option change that is not correct, I tried putting this back from Legacy to UEFI. Then did the whole second paragraph thing with no success. I also installed Linux Mint in case the issue was with pfSense, however same result.

I would appreciate any advice.

elon_masked · Accepted Answer

My apologies everyone.

I overlooked an important thing twice when I was installing Linux Mint. I have not asked it to erase the hard drive at installation. Once I've done that, the Linux Mint installation has booted off hard drive.

All that's left for me to do is to sort out the pfSense installation.

Sorry for wasting your time.

nyc10036 · Answer

I have a 3020 SFF.

The BIOS has legacy and UEFI. When I installed Windows 10 on it, I left it in legacy BIOS.

I don't know what pfSense is.

If you want to install in UEFI, your USB installation stick must be created for UEFI.

I use Rufus to create UEFI-bootable USB sticks from ISO files.

elon_masked · Answer

Hi @speedstep .  I understand that Dell does not offer support for pfSense.  The issue however is that the PC would not start the 2 OSes I tried so far.  I appreciate if someone could advise what more I have to do to make other OSes work.

elon_masked · Answer

Thank you for your input.

I confirm that my Linux Mint USB installation stick can do both legacy BIOS and UEFI. I then installed Linux Mint first with the PC configured for UEFI and after that I did a second installation with the PC configured for legacy BIOS. Both installations fail to start. It appears as though the PC doesn't successfully complete Power On Self Test and while this is going on the display remains blank so I don't have a clue what stage in POST it is in.

I'm thinking whether there's another "lock" mechanism preventing the Optiplex 9020 from starting an OS other than the Windows 10 (upgraded from Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit) it shipped with.

speedstep · Answer

There is no support for an OS that did not ship from the Dell model in question.

There is no free 3rd party OS/Software support here. There is no free support here for Linux or Windows or any other OS for an End of Life End of Support system. Support from Dell or Canonical or Microsoft etc is available. Its not free.

microsoft support

Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10/11 and Ubuntu, Redhat, Suse and many other Linux OS work fine but they are not supported here.

Not supported does not mean not working.

speedstep · Answer

@elon_masked  Dell does not support PFSENSE. There is support available its NOT free. https://www.pfsense.org/get-support/

Optiplex Desktops

OptiPlex 9020 SFF refuses to boot OS

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