Hi,
this is just a quick one for whom it might concern. I came across a problem today when I wanted to crossflash an IBM ServeRaid M1015 into a LSI SAS 9211-8i. This is a newer LSI SAS card, it says SAS9220-8i on a sticker and it seems it can also be crossflashed to be a LSI MegaRAID SAS 9240-8i as it looks just like it and to be a 9211-8i, too of course, which is usually the goal here. That is if you can get it to be recognized by the flash tool... which was the issue here.
I had searched on this forum for this particular problem and also on the web but didn't find a solution. There were a few threads about it here but no actual solution. But I came up with the solution that worked in my case by myself. So that's why I'm creating this thread, others who get stuck like I was might find it useful. Hence I added the SOLVED prefix already.
I had to use the EFI shell and the EFI version of the sas2flash tool since I get "ERROR: Failed to initialize PAL. Exiting program" on my SuperMicro X10 motherboard when trying to do anything with that tool in DOS. But I guess when you have an older motherboard with which sas2flsh.exe theoretically does work, this "No LSI SAS adapters found!" error is the same.
So what's the big deal? What is this about?
The card is recognized by the BIOS/UEFI, it shows its own BIOS messages, you can hit Ctrl-H and get the ugly WebUI, the drives work and so on but when you actually want to flash it, the card isn't recognized by the sas2flash tool. The error messages is "No LSI SAS adapters found!" etc. No, it's not broken. Just being weird.
So I assumed there was nothing wrong with the card at all. I got it from a respectable dealer and not from some Shenzhen back alley Ebay seller. Also I didn't even bother to switch the PCI slot or disconnect any other drives from the motherboard's HBA. The card worked fine! Instead I figured the most likely explanation is that the sas2flash tool only looks for LSI products. This is a very common thing for such low-level tools to do, so they don't accidentally brick other hardware. It's a safe guard and it's in the way.
Well, in my case it turned out I did the simple mistake of not erasing the card's flash with the Mega RAID HW tool! Doh! Instead I wanted to erase the card with sas2flash's own erase command "-o -e 6", but that's not possible if it doesn't recognize the card. So in my case the part where you boot into DOS (works regardless of your motherboard's UEFI) and execute megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin; megarec -cleanflash 0 is the right path to choose. Only after the IBM branding is erased, does the sas2flash tool recognize the card. As a little drawback, you can't make a complete backup of the original ServeRaid firmware with megarec.exe. That seems to be only possible with sas2flash, which only works with LSI branded cards. But if you wanted IR mode back, the LSI firmwares are the better choice anyway, because they are still being updated regularly. So, meh, whatever.
Hope this is useful for some people, who got stuck because they used the wrong guide.
PS: Oh, important! After erasing the card with the MegaRAID HWR Contoller (sic!) Recovery tool, you have to reset its original SAS address! Otherwise it will be 0000000-0-0000-0000. Not nice if you use multiple completely wiped and then crossflashed former M1015s in one system. I'm not sure if the command sas2flash.efi -o -e 6 which can be seen in many guides also wipes the SAS address, you better check with sas2flash.efi -o -listsasadd. Anyway use sas2flash.efi -o -c <controller number, in case you have more than one LSI HBA!!!> -sasadd 500605b0xxxxxxxx. You can find the address on a sticker on your card, omit the whitespace and dashes.
this is just a quick one for whom it might concern. I came across a problem today when I wanted to crossflash an IBM ServeRaid M1015 into a LSI SAS 9211-8i. This is a newer LSI SAS card, it says SAS9220-8i on a sticker and it seems it can also be crossflashed to be a LSI MegaRAID SAS 9240-8i as it looks just like it and to be a 9211-8i, too of course, which is usually the goal here. That is if you can get it to be recognized by the flash tool... which was the issue here.
I had searched on this forum for this particular problem and also on the web but didn't find a solution. There were a few threads about it here but no actual solution. But I came up with the solution that worked in my case by myself. So that's why I'm creating this thread, others who get stuck like I was might find it useful. Hence I added the SOLVED prefix already.
I had to use the EFI shell and the EFI version of the sas2flash tool since I get "ERROR: Failed to initialize PAL. Exiting program" on my SuperMicro X10 motherboard when trying to do anything with that tool in DOS. But I guess when you have an older motherboard with which sas2flsh.exe theoretically does work, this "No LSI SAS adapters found!" error is the same.
So what's the big deal? What is this about?
The card is recognized by the BIOS/UEFI, it shows its own BIOS messages, you can hit Ctrl-H and get the ugly WebUI, the drives work and so on but when you actually want to flash it, the card isn't recognized by the sas2flash tool. The error messages is "No LSI SAS adapters found!" etc. No, it's not broken. Just being weird.
So I assumed there was nothing wrong with the card at all. I got it from a respectable dealer and not from some Shenzhen back alley Ebay seller. Also I didn't even bother to switch the PCI slot or disconnect any other drives from the motherboard's HBA. The card worked fine! Instead I figured the most likely explanation is that the sas2flash tool only looks for LSI products. This is a very common thing for such low-level tools to do, so they don't accidentally brick other hardware. It's a safe guard and it's in the way.
Well, in my case it turned out I did the simple mistake of not erasing the card's flash with the Mega RAID HW tool! Doh! Instead I wanted to erase the card with sas2flash's own erase command "-o -e 6", but that's not possible if it doesn't recognize the card. So in my case the part where you boot into DOS (works regardless of your motherboard's UEFI) and execute megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin; megarec -cleanflash 0 is the right path to choose. Only after the IBM branding is erased, does the sas2flash tool recognize the card. As a little drawback, you can't make a complete backup of the original ServeRaid firmware with megarec.exe. That seems to be only possible with sas2flash, which only works with LSI branded cards. But if you wanted IR mode back, the LSI firmwares are the better choice anyway, because they are still being updated regularly. So, meh, whatever.
Hope this is useful for some people, who got stuck because they used the wrong guide.
PS: Oh, important! After erasing the card with the MegaRAID HWR Contoller (sic!) Recovery tool, you have to reset its original SAS address! Otherwise it will be 0000000-0-0000-0000. Not nice if you use multiple completely wiped and then crossflashed former M1015s in one system. I'm not sure if the command sas2flash.efi -o -e 6 which can be seen in many guides also wipes the SAS address, you better check with sas2flash.efi -o -listsasadd. Anyway use sas2flash.efi -o -c <controller number, in case you have more than one LSI HBA!!!> -sasadd 500605b0xxxxxxxx. You can find the address on a sticker on your card, omit the whitespace and dashes.
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