Flash M1015 to IT mode for FreeNAS?

[RichTJ99]

Hi,

I bought a M1015 card for a Poweredge T110 ii for a spare FreeNAS box. What is the easiest way to flash it to IT mode or whatever will work best with FreeNAS?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[nojohnny101]

Have you tried one of the many tutorials or followed any of the countless threads on the topic?
freenas flash m1015

Let us know if you get stuck.

 

[RichTJ99]

I keep trying & getting stuck with the cant initiate Pal error. I am really having a hard time.

I tried 3 different machines

Dell Poweredge T110 ii
Older Dell PC
4 year old Asus PC

All are giving the PAL error.

 

[Spearfoot]

I keep trying & getting stuck with the cant initiate Pal error. I am really having a hard time.

I tried 3 different machines

Dell Poweredge T110 ii
Older Dell PC
4 year old Asus PC

All are giving the PAL error.

You may need to use UEFI if you're getting the PAL error.

FreeNAS comes with sas2flash installed, so there's a good chance you can flash the card on either of your Supermicro FreeNAS servers, provided you're able/willing to shut one of them down and install the HBA in it long enough to flash it... and provided that you're very careful not to flash the wrong HBA! (Your X10SL7-F has an on-board LSI 2308 HBA).

You can pull a list of the LSI adapters on your system with the sas2flash -listall command. This shows the adapter numbers, which you can specify explicitly to the sas2flash command with the -c option. Here's what the output would look like on your X10SL7-F:

Code:

root@boomer:~ # sas2flash -listall
LSI Corporation SAS2 Flash Utility
Version 16.00.00.00 (2013.03.01)
Copyright (c) 2008-2013 LSI Corporation. All rights reserved

	Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2308_1(D1)

Num   Ctlr			FW Ver		NVDATA		x86-BIOS		 PCI Addr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

0  SAS2308_1(D1)   20.00.07.00	14.01.30.16	07.39.02.00	 00:03:00:00
1  SAS2008(B2)	 20.00.07.00	14.01.00.06	  No Image	  00:13:00:00

The SAS2308 adapter (Num=0) is the motherboard's built-in HBA, the SAS2008 controller (Num=1) is an HBA plugged in to a PCIe slot. This would be the card you'd want to flash. The sequence of commands would be something like this:

Code:

sas2flash -c 1 -o -e 7
sas2flash -c 1 -f 2108it.bin
sas2flash -c 1 -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flash -c 1 -o -sasadd 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Remove the sas2flash -c 1 -b mptsas2.rom command if you don't need to boot from a drive attached to the card.

The last command sets the 16-digit SAS Address of the card. Make a note of this before you begin flashing the card, using the sas2flash -c 1 -list command, which will give you output much like I've shown below. Don't include the punctuation when you specify the SAS Address; just provide 16 Hexadecimal digits.

Code:

root@boomer:~/scripts # sas2flash -c 1 -list
LSI Corporation SAS2 Flash Utility
Version 16.00.00.00 (2013.03.01)
Copyright (c) 2008-2013 LSI Corporation. All rights reserved

		Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2008(B2)

		Controller Number			  : 1
		Controller					 : SAS2008(B2)
		PCI Address					: 00:04:00:00
		SAS Address					: 5009999-9-9999-9999
		NVDATA Version (Default)	   : 14.01.00.06
		NVDATA Version (Persistent)	: 14.01.00.06
		Firmware Product ID			: 0x2213 (IT)
		Firmware Version			   : 20.00.07.00
		NVDATA Vendor				  : LSI
		NVDATA Product ID			  : SAS9210-8i
		BIOS Version				   : N/A
		UEFI BSD Version			   : N/A
		FCODE Version				  : N/A
		Board Name					 : SAS9210-8i
		Board Assembly				 : N/A
		Board Tracer Number			: N/A

If it turns out you need to use another machine and boot from a USB stick, I posted the full fileset I used to flash my M1015 here on the forum:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?attachments/m1015-zip.12761/

It includes a copy of shellx64.efi you can use to boot a UEFI environment, if that turns out to be what you need.

There is also a resource here on the forum which goes into great detail about this subject: "Detailed Newcomers Guide to Crossflashing LSI 9211 HBA and Variants"

Good luck!

 

[RichTJ99]

Thanks - I think I had a bad download or something. I used the tutorial here:
https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...5-lsi-9211-8i-firmware-on-uefi-systems.11462/

Including the download & I am good to go.

The only thing that failed was the
sas2flash.efi -c 0 -o -b mptsas2.rom

I am not exactly sure if I need it or not. If I try to flash that again would I need to reflash the sas address?

 

[Spearfoot]

Thanks - I think I had a bad download or something. I used the tutorial here:
https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...5-lsi-9211-8i-firmware-on-uefi-systems.11462/

Including the download & I am good to go.

The only thing that failed was the
sas2flash.efi -c 0 -o -b mptsas2.rom

I am not exactly sure if I need it or not. If I try to flash that again would I need to reflash the sas address?

This flashes the BIOS ROM onto the card. Your system will boot up faster without it, but you need it if you plan to boot from a drive attached to the card.

Once you've set the SAS Address, you shouldn't have to set it again unless you erase the card (which is what sas2flash -c 1 -o -e 7 does).