Detailed newcomers' guide to crossflashing LSI 9211/9300/9305/9311/9400/94xx HBA and variants

[Jason B]

I have read a few variations of this LSI 9211-8i flashing procedure and now I am trying this one. However, I continue to have the same problem. I cannot boot into the EFI shell on my Lenovo TS440. It does support UEFI. However, setting the BIOS to boot only to UEFI fails when trying too boot from the USB drive with error:

Error 1962: No operating system found. Boot sequence will automatically repeat.

I can configure the BIOS to auto boot and it will boot to the USB drive in DOS but when I run the command LSI_P5_sas2flsh.exe, the SAS2Flash Utiltiy banner appears but I get the the error:

Error: Failed to initialize PAL. Exiting Program.

Other articles I have read all suggest booting to UEFI when getting the PAL error. So this is my problem. I cannot flash using the sas2flash program because of said error and I cannot boot to UEFI.

I am using the files mentions in this guide. I copied the zip file MINIMAL_USB_FOR_9211_v2.zip from the google drive listed in the Resources section of the guide to my computer, created a bootable USB using Rufus and copied the contents of the zip file to the USB as nearly all the articles say. When copying the contents of the zip file to the USB a warning dialog appears stating there are 9 files with the same name, do you want to overwrite? Yes/No. However, all the articles, including this one, neglect to address the issue of overwriting the OS files (command.com, IO.sys, MSDOS.sys, autoexec.bat, config.sys) that are placed there when Rufus creates the bootable USB. It seems to me this could cause some problems. I tried responding with No then later with Yes. When I said No and booted to the USB drive, it boots fine in DOS except for a couple config.sys errors. Then when I run the sas2flash.exe I get the PAL error above. When copying the zip files to the USB and responding to the question of replacing the 9 files Yes/No with Yes and booting to the USB drive, then it fails booting with two errors:

Incorrect MS-DOS version
Bad or missing Command Interpreter: command.com /P /E:256

None of the articles mention the USB boot creation utility settings except that they should be FAT or FAT32. What about partition scheme and target system type? There are a couple of options:

MBR partition scheme for BIOS or UEFI
MBR partition scheme for UEFI
GPT partition scheme for UEFI

Anyway I am frustrated and could use some help.

 

[SweetAndLow]

This guide was extremely helpful, but I seem to be fighting a different issue now -- and it's one I can't find much about.

I purchased an LSI 9200-8e card off an eBay vendor (who claimed the card was tested good). It arrived with a very old version of the IT firmware loaded on it, so I successfully flashed it to the latest (v20) version.

The problem I have, though, is it appears to only be working properly if I have one SATA drive attached to whatever Mini-SAS cable I run to the enclosure. I purchased a "fan out" cable that goes from Mini-SAS to 4 SATA ports, so I could try directly connecting my drives to it, using a PC power supply to power them. Same issue. Works great if I only attach one SATA drive, but with more than that? The controller BIOS searches for a while and reports it only sees 1 of the drives as usable. When FreeNAS boots, it gets a slew of "timeout -- retrying" type errors scrolling up the screen while trying to initialize the LSI SAS card, followed by resetting and it happening again.

Is there an issue that the 9200 card only supports one device per Mini-SAS port (like it was a lower-end card designed just to attach tape backup drives to or something)?

What cable did you get exactly? You need a forward breakout cable.

Sent from my XT1096 using Tapatalk

 

[Jason B]

So, I determined my problem was the result of the path to the efi shell file is specific on my Lenovo server. This fact was mentioned in this guide but the exact filename is specific to motherboards or h/w manufacturers. I found a Lenovo article that carefully explains UEFI on my server and lists the required filename.

https://www.lenovo.com/images/produ...resources/thinkserver_ts140_ts440_uefi_tr.pdf

In my case I needed to rename the file shellx64.efi to bootx64.efi. I renamed the file in both the USB root and \efi\boot folder.

Thanks for this article. Very thorough.

 

[Otis]

So, I determined my problem was the result of the path to the efi shell file is specific on my Lenovo server. This fact was mentioned in this guide but the exact filename is specific to motherboards or h/w manufacturers. I found a Lenovo article that carefully explains UEFI on my server and lists the required filename.

https://www.lenovo.com/images/produ...resources/thinkserver_ts140_ts440_uefi_tr.pdf

In my case I needed to rename the file shellx64.efi to bootx64.efi. I renamed the file in both the USB root and \efi\boot folder.

Thanks for this article. Very thorough.

Your digging should help me, so thanks for posting your solution! Not enough people are willing to take the time. I'm going down this road with a TS-440 now.

It appears the link below is the Lenovo card I'll get getting as part of a barebones refurb. Does this card look familiar? It looks just like an IBM M1015 as close as I can tell using images.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-LSI-...D-Controller-03T6739-w-Warranty-/382168767094

TIA,
Otis

 

[Stux]

Your digging should help me, so thanks for posting your solution! Not enough people are willing to take the time. I'm going down this road with a TS-440 now.

It appears the link below is the Lenovo card I'll get getting as part of a barebones refurb. Does this card look familiar? It looks just like an IBM M1015 as close as I can tell using images.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-LSI-...D-Controller-03T6739-w-Warranty-/382168767094

TIA,
Otis

Lenovo acquired IBM's personal computer business in 2005 and agreed to acquire its Intel-based server business in 2014

So, a Lenovo M1015 is pretty much an IBM one ;)

 

[Otis]

So, a Lenovo M1015 is pretty much an IBM one ;)

Thank you @Stux! It looked that way, but I didn't want to ASSume.

 

[Jason B]

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, Lenovo acquired IBM's PC and server business. However, even though the Lenovo/IBM disk controllers (HBA's) have IBM part numbers (M1015) they are really made by LSI.

 

[Otis]

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, Lenovo acquired IBM's PC and server business. However, even though the Lenovo/IBM disk controllers (HBA's) have IBM part numbers (M1015) they are really made by LSI.

Yea, Lenovo has it's own part # too. I guess they overlapped on some stuff besides the names of product lines.

Of course I'm old enough to remember when a think pad was an analog device, just available for employees. So I'm getting forgetful, easily confused.

 

[Stux]

I remember loading tapes reels into big blue boxes...

 

[Otis]

I remember loading tapes reels into big blue boxes...

Yep, and then disk packs the size of cars.

 

[Busan]

I'm having an issue at the flashing part.
Flashing in UEFI, card LSI 9211-8i

When I enter this command: sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
I get an error that syntax is wrong. See attached screenshot.
Any ideas what is wrong?

edit:
Isuing command: sas2flash.efi –listall
tells me that card requires firmware download.

 

[SweetAndLow]

is that actually the name of your file? all capitals and exactly that wording?

 

[Snow]

Oh boy was it so much fun flashing my 9211. Also I had a Raid HBA card that came with my SuperMicro and It refused to cross flash.
From what I could find cross flashing is not a 100% guaranteed deal. My 9211 had no problem flashing in to IR/IT mode.

 

[Ericloewe]

How do I add a zip file to that resource (3 MB)? If I can't and a mod can, can I msg it to someone?

This should be possible with XenForo 2.0, if you're interested in trying.

 

[Busan]

is that actually the name of your file? all capitals and exactly that wording?

They are named differently (as seen in attachment) but I'm using tab to fill out the exact names. I've also tried naming it really short, like "it.bin". Also no go. Same syntax error. All files are located in the same directory so it should not be an issue, but it is.
If need be, tomorrow, I can take a picture of "dir" command and then result of sas2flash command so you can see clearly.

EDIT: Added dir output + exact syntax screenshot.

 

[Busan]

After searching for past week for a resolution of the problem i have found out that Gigabyte motherboard that I have on my main PC has F7 BIOS version and that Gigabyte's EFI implementation on that board and that bios version is, for the lack of a better expression, simply wrong.No newer bios version is available.

The fix to my problem was achieved within 2-3 minutes after plugging the SAS card into a Intel S5500BC server motherboard.
Since I was able to wipe the card before hand on Gigabyte board, upon issuing command "sas2flash.efi -listall" program informed me that the card needs to be flashed and asked for a file name which I provided.
Flash was done in under 30 seconds and the card now reports it is running in IT mode.

 

[nepoxx]

No matter what I try and which version of sas2flash I use (including the hacked one), I get:

"No LSI SAS adapters found!" (both dos and efi)

megarec lists the following card:

Code:

MR Card 0

Type: 2108V

Vendor Id: 0x1000, Device Id: 0x79

As far as I can tell the card I have is an IBM M1015 (not sure how to tell for sure but I see 46M0581 on it).

Any ideas?

(megarec clean flash worked properly)

 

[Busan]

Have you gone through this thread?

https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/ibm-serveraid-m1015-and-no-lsi-sas-adapters-found.27445/

 

[nepoxx]

I have a M5015 and not a M1015, that was my mistake :/ Sorry about that.

 

[curvingedge]

This tutorial is so great! Thanks for the write up!

This may not be relevant on a FreeNAS forum, but this is the only site I could find close to what I wanted to do. I purchased a LSI 9300-8i (default IT mode) for a windows machine and would like to flash to IR mode. The firmware file on the broadcom site has 9300-8i IT and 9311-8i IR firmwares (this is the same for both cards). They are both SAS3008 chips. Does that mean I can crossflash my card with the 9311 IR firmware and use hardware RAID instead of windows dynamic disk raid? I tried it before reading this with SAS3Flash and it didn't allow because the NVROM did not match 9300 vs 9311. I assume that's why the NVROM must be erased before crossflash. Also no mention in the tutorial of the 2 pin jumper, is that required on any cards (read this on another tutorial)?

Any info is greatly appreciated, TIA