Tutorial: Bootloader + DSM 6.1 + Storage on a single SSD

[TyphoonNL]

In this tutorial we are going to place the bootloader alongside the DSM OS and the remaining storage
Keep in mind that i use DSM 6.1 and not 6.2!

 

What you need:
Win32DiskImager

• Jun's loader v1.02b DS3615xs with MBR partition
• DSM 6.1 (15047)
• grub2 (i used grub2-for-windows)
• partition/hard disk manager (i used Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15)
• USB stick for the bootloader
• empty SSD

 

First we are going to put the bootloader on a USB stick using Win32DiskImager

 

Then we are going to install DSM normally
After the installation of DSM and configuring your device name, username, etc
goto the Storage Manager and create a RAID Group for only the SSD in Basic

 

then click Apply and goto Volume and create one (doesn't matter what File system you used, but i use ext4)

then click OK and shutdown the server

Now we are going to do some fun things with the SSD drive where DSM and the storage are installed on
put the SSD drive and the USB stick with the bootloader on it (we need some files later) out of the DiskStation machine and put them in your main PC

Start up your partition/hard disk manager and look for the SSD that you installed DSM on
it should look like this:

 

Look at the last Unallocated partition, it should be 100MB big thats plenty for the loader
so we are going to make a new partition (50MB is enough) and make sure you put it at the very end of the drive
dont forget to put the drive as Active and assign a drive letter to it

 

Now we are going to install grub2 on that 50MB partition
i used this website to make one (because i use Windows)

After you have install grub2 on that partition that we need to copy all the files from the 2nd partition of the usb drive and place them in the root directory of the 50MB partition
don't forget to place the grub.cfg (from the 1st partition) in the /grub folder of 50MB partition

 

Now unplug the SSD from your PC and place it in your DiskStation pc and boot it up (you dont need to edit anything just let it boot)
you can use Synology Assistant to find your DiskStation pc
and you should see a normal welcome page were you can login

After you have logged in you should see an error message, that is because of the small FAT16 partition
you will get that everytime you startup that machine
Storage Manager should say that your system is healthy.

 

Thats it, you can now use it normally without an USB bootloader
also you can update to the latest 6.1 version if you want (make sure you don't install 6.2, haven't tested that one)

[quyetwru]

Thank for share. I has tested in hp slim 8300 with Lan card intel 82579LM. It is work !

Edited April 29, 2020 by quyetwru

[warp]

Thanks a lot, it works. Should be included by default in the installation guide

Tested successfully on a HP 260 G1, jun’s loader 1.02b, DSM v6.1.7

[brickrat]

I tried this with juns loader 1.03 and DSM 6.2, could bot get it working. 

 

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by brickrat

[TyphoonNL]

I havent tested 6.2

I only tested 6.1

[ChRiS82]

When you use Grab2 whats the method to install it? i can only be able to install it as an EFI. When im trying to install i386 a message "No Access" popup in the CMD.
Something that im doing here is wrong. 
I did tried with both EFI ways and the synology doesnt start after i copy the files from the USB Partition to the Formatted 50MB Partition.
I also have tried to format the partition as FAT/FAT32. Assign a drive letter as the guide said and also set the partition as "active" and Primary.

Can anyone help ?

I did find my issue.

You should mention that to copy the files from the first partition of the USB Stick, you have to turn the 1st partition to Logical to read the files.

Thanks for the help and much appriciated for this guide. I did figure to get it working.

Edited October 15, 2020 by ChRiS82

[maor]

where is the grub.cfg?

 

[Simone95]

Hello. Thanks for this very interesting guide.

I'm stuck in the passage: "don't forget to place the grub.cfg (from the 1st partition) in the / grub folder of 50MB partition"

Honestly, I don't know where to find that grub.cfg file. Also I have no way to access the first partition. I assigned it a letter, but windows won't allow me to access it anyway.

I also tried to turn partition to logical partition with AOMEI partition assistant, but it doesn't mention any logical partition, I can only convert all disk to dynamic disk. But I don't think that's correct.

Can anyone help me solve my problem?

Thank you

Best regards

Simone

[Danutzu1069]

@TyphoonNL, I have recently "switch" from external USBstick  bootloader, to SSD bootloader, based on your tutorial.

It's ok  and well explained (can be tunned a little..).

🍻

 

@Simone95,  "don't forget to place the grub.cfg (from the 1st partition of original USB stick) in the / grub folder of 50MB partition"

[ideasman69]

Thanks for this guide! I've had DSM5 installed on a kimsufi KS-1 server for a couple years now. Someone made a synboot.img file for DSM5 that was a single partition and fit perfectly in between two of the synology created partitions. I could never get the DSM6 bootloader working until now - so thanks a bunch.

 

If you create your bootloader partition on the other unused area - you won't get any issues within the Synology GUI:

 

 

I tried to get the DSM6.2 bootloader working but even after copying the extra files from both synboot.img partitions to the newly created partition, it doesn't seem to boot.

Edited March 20, 2021 by ideasman69

[BionX]

On 3/14/2020 at 6:01 PM, TyphoonNL said:

In this tutorial we are going to place the bootloader alongside the DSM OS and the remaining storage
Keep in mind that i use DSM 6.1 and not 6.2!

 

What you need:
Win32DiskImager

• Jun's loader v1.02b DS3615xs with MBR partition
• DSM 6.1 (15047)
• grub2 (i used grub2-for-windows)
• partition/hard disk manager (i used Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15)
• USB stick for the bootloader
• empty SSD

 

First we are going to put the bootloader on a USB stick using Win32DiskImager

 

Then we are going to install DSM normally
After the installation of DSM and configuring your device name, username, etc
goto the Storage Manager and create a RAID Group for only the SSD in Basic

 

then click Apply and goto Volume and create one (doesn't matter what File system you used, but i use ext4)

then click OK and shutdown the server

Now we are going to do some fun things with the SSD drive where DSM and the storage are installed on
put the SSD drive and the USB stick with the bootloader on it (we need some files later) out of the DiskStation machine and put them in your main PC

Start up your partition/hard disk manager and look for the SSD that you installed DSM on
it should look like this:

 

Look at the last Unallocated partition, it should be 100MB big thats plenty for the loader
so we are going to make a new partition (50MB is enough) and make sure you put it at the very end of the drive
dont forget to put the drive as Active and assign a drive letter to it

 

Now we are going to install grub2 on that 50MB partition
i used this website to make one (because i use Windows)

After you have install grub2 on that partition that we need to copy all the files from the 2nd partition of the usb drive and place them in the root directory of the 50MB partition
don't forget to place the grub.cfg (from the 1st partition) in the /grub folder of 50MB partition

 

Now unplug the SSD from your PC and place it in your DiskStation pc and boot it up (you dont need to edit anything just let it boot)
you can use Synology Assistant to find your DiskStation pc
and you should see a normal welcome page were you can login

After you have logged in you should see an error message, that is because of the small FAT16 partition
you will get that everytime you startup that machine
Storage Manager should say that your system is healthy.

 

Hello thank you for your guide... 

i am trying 2 days now with no success

Please be more specific about the grub installation process, what should i choose to install, efi 86 or efi86_64 or all the three?

Edited May 18, 2021 by BionX

[BionX]

On 10/15/2020 at 2:45 PM, ChRiS82 said:

When you use Grab2 whats the method to install it? i can only be able to install it as an EFI. When im trying to install i386 a message "No Access" popup in the CMD.
Something that im doing here is wrong. 
I did tried with both EFI ways and the synology doesnt start after i copy the files from the USB Partition to the Formatted 50MB Partition.
I also have tried to format the partition as FAT/FAT32. Assign a drive letter as the guide said and also set the partition as "active" and Primary.

Can anyone help ?

I did find my issue.

You should mention that to copy the files from the first partition of the USB Stick, you have to turn the 1st partition to Logical to read the files.

Thanks for the help and much appriciated for this guide. I did figure to get it working.

you mean the second partition cause the first partition got the grub and is anyways visible,also is already been mentioned in the guide...

Edited May 18, 2021 by BionX

[BionX]

Lets be more specific...i used cmd and run as admin, i executed cd /d C:\grub-2.02-for-windows (when i installed the grub from the website i installed to C:\) so we execute the command above and an we are at grub program directory.

Then we execute the command

grub-install.exe --boot-directory=G(letter of the boot partition on ssd we made, fill in your letter) --target=i386-pc //./PHYSICALDRIVE2  

open the boot partition and recheck if all are done, then we get all the files of the usb's second partition if its not visible you can go to computer management and asign a letter it will reveiled, copy and paste all the file(zImage,rd,info,extra all 6 files...... except for the checksum.syno) to the root of the SSD boot partition, also get the grub configuration file from the grub directory of the usb's 1st partition edit it and change the vid(0x0000) and pid(0x0000) digits with those of your SSD and the MAC address of our motherboards lan, and copy and paste it in the grub directory of the SSD's boot partition.

 

then in bios ---> boot --> csm--   LEGACY ONLY 

save and boot

worked just fine. thanx

Edited May 18, 2021 by BionX

[jcgechevarria]

On 5/18/2021 at 7:34 PM, BionX said:

Lets be more specific...i used cmd and run as admin, i executed cd /d C:\grub-2.02-for-windows (when i installed the grub from the website i installed to C:\) so we execute the command above and an we are at grub program directory.

Then we execute the command

grub-install.exe --boot-directory=G(letter of the boot partition on ssd we made, fill in your letter) --target=i386-pc //./PHYSICALDRIVE2  

open the boot partition and recheck if all are done, then we get all the files of the usb's second partition if its not visible you can go to computer management and asign a letter it will reveiled, copy and paste all the file(zImage,rd,info,extra all 6 files...... except for the checksum.syno) to the root of the SSD boot partition, also get the grub configuration file from the grub directory of the usb's 1st partition edit it and change the vid(0x0000) and pid(0x0000) digits with those of your SSD and the MAC address of our motherboards lan, and copy and paste it in the grub directory of the SSD's boot partition.

 

then in bios ---> boot --> csm--   LEGACY ONLY 

save and boot

worked just fine. thanx

Sorry, but internal SSD disks, has not PID and VID...  and... i tried this procedure and work's fine on a WD green ssd sata M2 drive

Edited November 24, 2021 by jcgechevarria
Correction

[aniel]

does this works with 6.2.2/6.2.3(jun) and dsm 7(redpill) ?

[horvathzeros]

On 6/28/2022 at 9:01 AM, aniel said:

does this works with 6.2.2/6.2.3(jun) and dsm 7(redpill) ?

+1 

 

i also want to know if anyone tested this on newer versions like 7.1

[Peter Suh]

On 7/21/2023 at 7:39 AM, horvathzeros said:

+1 

 

i also want to know if anyone tested this on newer versions like 7.1

 

Me and @wjz304 are trying it.
If possible, we will try to do this easily within DSM without using Windows.

Redpill has a problem with the 100Mb limit per disk.
This is because a capacity larger than 100 Mb is required.

 

I'm also thinking about using multiple disks.
There is a method of creating partitions through sfdisk that Synology uses for VDSM.

I analyzed the contents of the file below provided by @wjz304.
/usr/syno/sbin/installer.sh