SOLVED H200 not working after flash

[TiberioG]

Hi there,
I have just bought my first server, HP Proliant DL 160 with 24GB RAM and 8TB SATA hdds (4 x 2TB) with a DELL H200 SAS PCIe Card.
Since I have read that H200 needs to be flashed to IT mode I have followed this guide for flashing the firmware. After doing that when I start the server I get this message:

Code:

6gbps SAS controller 
MPT2BIOS-7.11.10.00 (2011.06.02) 
Copyright 200-2011 LSI corporation

which seems to be ok and properly flashed because I'm able to enter with Ctrl C into the utility.
but then i get this error:

Code:

ERROR: Preferred boot device is missing, reconfiguration is suggested 
Press any key to continue...
MPT boot ROM, no supported device found 

Actually the card doesn't recognise any HDD. I opened the LSI utility and under SAS topology no drive is displayed. When I boot freenas no drive is recognised.
So I have tried to disconnect the SAS cable from the DEL H200 and I have connected it to the onboard SATA controller which should be a B110i. In BIOS is set to AHCI mode. With the onboard controller Freenas is able to see the 4 drives correctly.
Now the question are:

1. Should I use the onboard sata controller or the H200? Are there any differences? Please could you explain me which is better?
2. How can i fix DELL H200? Should I re-flash the card following the guide?

Thank you in advance!

T.

 

[Sakuru]

Please post the output of sas2flash -list in [CODE][/CODE] tags.

 

[TiberioG]

Please post the output of sas2flash -list in [CODE][/CODE] tags.

Thank you for your reply.

So I have used the command sas2flsh.exe -listall via DOS and here is the output:

Code:

Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS : SAS2008(??)
Num 0
Ctrl SAS2008(??)
FW Ver 20.00.07.00
NVDATA 14.01.00.08
x86-BIOS 07.11.10.00
PCI Addr 00:07:00:00
Finished Processing Commands Successfully

Here is sas2flsh.exe -c 0 -list output:

Code:

Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS : SAS2008(??)
Controller number 0
Controller SAS2008(??)
PCI Addr 00:07:00:00
SAS Address 5d4ae52-0a781-4910
NVDATA Version (Default) 14.01.00.08
NVDATA Version (Persistant) 14.01.00.08
Firmware product ID 0x2213
Firmware version 20.00.07.00
NVDATA vendor LSI
NVDATA Product ID SAS9211-8i
BIOS version 07.11.10.00
UEFI BSD version 07.02.03.00
FCODE Version N/A

I hope this could help. Actually for me everything seems ok, isnt'it?

I'd prefer flashing H200, of course, but would you tell me please if there is something wrong using the internal adapter and why?
Thank you in advance for help.
If anyone can add something more I would be really thankful.
Regards,
T.

 

[TiberioG]

I have to add that after some attempts I was not able to boot freeDOS fromUSB stick so I have burnt a CD with freeDOS and prepared a usb stick with all the utility for flashing found on the above mentioned guide. In freedos I mounted the USB disk which is under B:\ and started sas2flsh.exe from that directory.

 

[Sakuru]

It looks like you crossflashed the H200 properly. What is the model number of the SAS cable you are using? I hope it's not a reverse breakout cable, because that would definitely be a reason why it's not working.

The SATA ports on your motherboard may work, but our top 2 choices around here are Intel SATA ports and LSI SAS HBAs. Your H200 has been crossflashed to an LSI 9211-8i SAS HBA.

 

[TiberioG]

It looks like you crossflashed the H200 properly. What is the model number of the SAS cable you are using? I hope it's not a reverse breakout cable, because that would definitely be a reason why it's not working.

The SATA ports on your motherboard may work, but our top 2 choices around here are Intel SATA ports and LSI SAS HBAs. Your H200 has been crossflashed to an LSI 9211-8i SAS HBA.

Thank you very much for your reply.
My cable is branded HP PN 493228-005 spare number 498425-001
I performed some researches but I wasn't able to find out what kind of cable is.
I only don't understand why before flashing the card it recognized the drives even if it is a reverse cable.
If the problem is the cable I'm going to search a forward cable to connect the card to the back-plane.
Thank you in advance for help.

 

[Sakuru]

Oh, you have a backplane? Then you probably have a SFF8087 to SFF8087 cable. Forward breakout cables split 1 SFF8087 into 4 SATA cables to connect to drives. Reverse breakout cables converge 4 SATA cables into 1 SFF8087 so you can connect motherboard SATA ports to a backplane. They look identical, but they are not interchangeable.

 

[TiberioG]

Thank you for your reply.
Yes, I have a SFF8087 male -male cable which connects the SAS card to the backplane where dirives are attached. Of course I don't want to remove the backplane because I think it is not possible. Is there a way to fix that? Since with the internal controller the cable works I don't understand why using the H200 the drives aren't recognized.
What do you suggest me?
Thank you in advance for help.

 

[Sakuru]

Do you have another system to test the H200 with? As far as I can tell it should be working.

 

[TiberioG]

I was able to fix the issue re-flashing the card. Now it doesn't boot the BIOS of the card but freeness is able to see the drives.
Thank you Sakuru for your help.