Nightmare installing Rock

Yep, I thought I know how computers work until I had to fiddle with that bl@&€y NUC :partying_face:

Its a diva, just not as good singing :grin:

The nuc is incredibly easy compared to building a PC from individual components so count your blessings. :slight_smile:
It’s also why roon offer the nucleus, unpack and switch on. Though your bank balance will be feeling the stress rather than you…:money_with_wings::money_with_wings:

Don’t agree, found pc build easy. Way to expensive to buy the nucleus

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You bought a new drive because you made a mistake? That’s like buying a new car because the trashbin is full. All you have to do is re-format it, it will work like brand new after you have done that.

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Don’t worry about me, I can get them easily and return via work.

Not sure how that comment helps though !

In helping you save money by pointing out that a drive is not wasted by accidentically installing an OS on it. It can be reformatted and work exactly like a new one. Nothing is broken or wasted and It’s a two minute job.

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Hi Danny. My advice to make the instructions easier would be to delete them and make an instruction video instead. I personally comprehend better with visual aids more than reading typed words. This is the day of YouTube and there are many talented people who would do a great job. For someone who has never seen bios set up screen because they are strictly Apple users, this would be very helpful. Even explaining a little bit what all the options are in Bios would be helpful. Trying to explain this in typed words would be too long. If the video is a no go then at the very least add some screen shots of each step of the process. Visual aids speak more than written words. I think you would have more happy customers and less support issues.

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Hi,

Do exactly what you did the first time, but instead of having the two hard disks connected, remove the 1tb from the NUC entirely. Once you finish the setup, turn off the NUC, install again the 1tb hard disk, and ROCK will find it, and asks you to format it, it will take a couple of minutes, and you’ll get the proper installation

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I would even reformat the 1 TB before I put it back in the NUC just to make sure nothing tries to access it instead of the 128 SSD. I think Roon will reformat it again as part of the install process. As far as boot order, of course the 128 SSD should be first because that’s the only drive that will have the operating system on it. The 1 TB SSD will be used just for storing your music files. Return the new 1 TB, you won’t need it.

@Kevin_Harrison I’m guessing you might have a gen 10 Nuc here that rock doesn’t support yet and the only thing wrong is the Ethernet connection now. Solution is to try a usb to Ethernet adapter and work with that.

Failing that specific details about the exact model of NUC you have Might be in order.

No - not as part of the ROCK installation process. However, if you want to use it for Music storage, then it needs to be formatted using the Web Administration Interface.

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All sorted. I just let my Aspergers affected mind rest and solved in 5 mins Saturday morning.

Basically started from scratch, ignored Bios settings. Installed without 1tb disc installed.

Worked immediately. Put new SSD in. Formatted - job done

Anyway, those of you that offered constructive advice, thanks so much.

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Virtual high five.

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Danny, there are multiple complaints on these pages about the ROCK installation guide being not easy to follow. Indeed it is confusing IMO too. The instructions themselves seem complete, the problem to me (and others) is the format. Some steps lead to another page that contains other steps to follow, at the end of which one have to return back to the original page.

You wouldn’t have to rewrite the whole thing except perhaps for some updates on the newer NUCs. Compiling all the sections and subsections in their logical order on a single page would be probably enough.

sorry about the bolding, don’t know how that happened?
The problem many people seem to have is that the instructions for setting up the BIOS in NUC8 are different than the user experience. What worked for the prior generation of NUCs doesn’t seem to jibe with the 8th Gen. The two significant places where this differs seems to be how to select correct boot order and properly enabling the M2 drive. Another aspect that tends to confuse some people is that it appears many of the options one enables don’t take effect until the NUC is rebooted. (I think this is why someone ended up putting ROCK on their SATA drive and had the M2 drive left for music storage.) So you can make a change, but it won’t work. If people futz with it enough and keep rebooting it they’ll get it done. But for others who are familiar with doing this stuff it seems second nature.
I eventually got this to work on my NUC8i7BNH, but could see many people were struggling where I was. I tried to go through it again and write everything down, but once the NUC and M.2 drive are set up, it doesn’t present itself as a ‘virgin’ machine. What follows below is what I wrote down

After you have updated the BIOS. Turn the NUC off. (Just press the power down and it will power down.

Hold down F2 as you turn on the NUC.

Press F9 to set BIOS to factory defaults.

Select the Legacy Tab.

Check that Legacy Boot is enabled.

Underneath the box, click the blue “Advanced” box

A screen titled Intel Visual BIOS will come up and underneath that are a row of boxes.

Select Devices

Then select the PCI tab

Check that the M.2 Slot is checked (it may be turned off).

At the bottom of the screen hit F10 to save everything.

Hold down the F2 key as the NUC reboots. It will bring up the Visual BIOS screen again.

Click on the Legacy Tab. The M.2 drive should now be listed

Drag the M.2 SSD drive to the first in order.

Make sure Enable USB Boot is still enabled.

Select F10 to save and exit.

When the NUC powers up it may try to boot from the network. If you are getting a message like that just press the power button to turn off the NUC.

Now you can proceed to Step 3 of the ROCK installation instructions.

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@Danny in my opinion I think the instructions are clear. I just did my first ROCK, actually MOCK (Gigabyte Brix), and after reading so many comments in the forum I thought the process would lead me to use at least half a day, as MOCK is not supported by Roon, so I thought it would be a pain, but if I were going to save money so be it. So, the day I got my Brix, I booked half a day on my agenda as busy. I downloaded the Roon startup image to a USB, searched in YouTube a guide on how to enable Legacy Boot (the video was 10 minutes long). I did NOT updated the BIOS because I think it would totally disable Legacy Boot. Then inserted the USB, pressed like crazy F12 (I have funny memories of pressing buttons like crazy to get into BIOS, years I didn’t do it), selected the USB as a boot option, spent 5 minutes, then the system said it was ready, showed me the IP.

Entered the IP in Safari, it said all the relevant information, and the CODECs were missing, I clicked the button, downloaded the file, unzipped it, copied it into the folder connecting from my Mac, and there it was, total time 20 minutes!!

Thanks for the great guide, which I just followed straight forward, with the exception of the Legacy Boot, which as I said, is not a NUC therefore I did not follow the NUC BIOS instruction, which I don’t think is difficult to follow as well.

I agree, the update bios steps should probably be removed… that was from long while back and is no longer an issue or required. They just complicate things, and if done wrong, may even brick the NUC.

Yeah, I and others have made the same comment about the BIOS update instructions, to no avail.

At the least , the instructions should have some comment to the effect that it probably isn’t necessary and to try without first.

I write HDI’s as part of my profession.

A HDI is supposed to be written so that someone with no experience can start at the beginning and use the guide start to finish. There should never be an assumption that you should be able to do it and you should always assume that the user has no knowledge.

The guide helps, but way too much jumping from page to page.

An example of an issue is using a tv screen or monitor to set up, only at the end does it state inputting an Ethernet cable to get an IP address, whilst attached to a tv.

What if you use Apple so the monitor isn’t compatible and you have no tv near an Ethernet connection. I had to remove a 65” off my wall and carry into my office to get the IP.

The Bios guide is nothing close to what you have to do, it doesn’t state what boot order things should be in for example and screenshots are minimal.

I can’t see for the life of me why there isn’t a YouTube video explaining all of this.

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@mikeb missed this?