IBM M1015 boot problem.

[panz]

I've just purchased my first Serveraid M1015.

I put it in a PCIe slot and boot up the machine (no drives connected at all, neither to the IBM controller nor to the motherboard SATA ports).

The card shows the message in the attached image, but I can't access its BIOS. If I reboot I'm not able to access the motherboard BIOS (pressing Canc or F2) or boot from another media like an USB stick. If I remove the card all returns back to normality :(

So I tried it in a non UEFI board (MSI C847-E33) and I'm stuck with the same problem.

Any idea?

 

[titan_rw]

I had that problem in one of the two nas's I have 1015's in. I attribute it to the consumer MB not liking to post with 'non video cards' in the pci-e slots. I just re-flashed this specific card and left out the 'optionROM' 'option'. The driver still loads in FreeNAS, you just don't get the text 'post' of the card during boot up. Which really doesn't matter when used in IT mode anyway.

 

[cyberjock]

*some* cards won't let you access them without a hard drive attached. Doubt that's a problem here, but it is something to try. Drop into IRC and we'll see if I can help you out there.

 

[panz]

Thank you very much cyberjock, it's late night here now and I'm going to travel 600 km :) so I'll join you into IRC tomorrow.

I tried to connect some drives (one Seagate 1TB and one Samsung 1TB) without success. The strange thing is that the IBM card doesn't allow me to access the MB BIOS and doesn't respond to keyboard commands.

 

[panz]

I had that problem in one of the two nas's I have 1015's in. I attribute it to the consumer MB not liking to post with 'non video cards' in the pci-e slots. I just re-flashed this specific card and left out the 'optionROM' 'option'. The driver still loads in FreeNAS, you just don't get the text 'post' of the card during boot up. Which really doesn't matter when used in IT mode anyway.

I had the same goal, titan_rw, because I was trying to boot to reflash the controller, but the M1015 "takes control" of the machine and doesn't allow any other device to boot.

 

[titan_rw]

I didn't bother flashing any of my 1015's in the computer they were going to be in long term. I found an older mb / cpu that worked for flashing. I keep this as a test bench platform for various different things. At first I had flashed the full boot optionrom onto the card. Tried it in the nas and realized it was preventing the machine from fully posting. So I took the card out, put it back into the test bench mb, reflashed it without the optionrom, and it worked when put back into the nas machine.

 

[panz]

Thank you cyberjock and titan_rw. Today I'm back from my travel, so I'm going to test the M1015.

From what I've read until now, my two motherboards (these are not the MBs I'm going to install FreeNAS to) – an ASRock Z87 Pro4 and an MSI C847MS-E33 – are not able to "see" a controller installed in their PCIe slot(s), because they expect a video card to be there.

I've not yet ordered the hardware for the FreeNAS box (I'm going towards Supermicro X9SCM-F with an Intel Xeon 1230 V2) so a friend of mine has an Asus board without UEFI BIOS: I presume this board will allow me to test the M1015 and flash the IT firmware. I'm going to follow this procedure:

http://brycv.com/blog/2012/flashing-it-firmware-to-lsi-sas9211-8i/

 

[cyberjock]

Very possible it won't work in those boards. Since neither of those motherboards are made by companies we hold in high regard(they may be good desktop boards, but they aren't designed for servers) and the boards aren't even server boards anyway, you'll get no tears from me. It is an interesting datapoint though!

 

[panz]

Very possible it won't work in those boards. Since neither of those motherboards are made by companies we hold in high regard(they may be good desktop boards, but they aren't designed for servers) and the boards aren't even server boards anyway, you'll get no tears from me. It is an interesting datapoint though!

You were right!!! I'm at my friend's home: she has a beautiful :D old school plain PCIe motherboard made by Pegatron... just inserted the IBM M1015, followed these instructions:

http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/

and... now I'm a happy owner of a M1015 flashed to IT mode

Thank you very much :)

 

[Shaqalac]

So I have the exact same problem.

When my IBM M1015 is connected to the PCI-E it wont get past this page. Sometimes it wont even show that picture, the system boots but there's no picture, the monitor says there's no signal, I've even experienced the system rebooting on its own after ~20sec. If I remove the IBM M1015 the system boots as normal. It started doing this yesterday, the day before that I was trying to install Debian with M1015 connected and that was causing no problems whatsoever.

So is there something wrong with my hardware since I've been able to boot normally with the M1015 connected and now I'm not? Or should I find an old computer and flash the M1015 to IT mode?

EDIT: Here is all the hardware installed in my NAS.
Parts list:

• CPU: Intel Pentium G3220T (ordered) (arrived)
• CPU cooler: Noctua NH-L9i (ordered) (arrived)
• RAM: Kingston HyperX Black 4GB 1333MHz (ordered) (arrived)
• Motherboard: MSI B85I (ordered) (arrived)
• Power supply: SilverStone SFX ST45SF-G (ordered) (arrived)
• Case: Lian-Li PC-Q25B (ordered) (arrived)
• Expansion card: IBM ServeRAID M1015 (ordered) (arrived)
• Storage: SeaGate NAS HDD ST4000VN000 4TB x 4 (ordered) (arrived)
• USB for OS: SanDisk Cruzer Fit 8GB or 16GB (ordered)
• Other: Noctua NF-A14 PWM, Noctua NF-F12 PWM, Mini SAS to 4 SATA x 2, cable ties (ordered) (arrived)

 

[panz]

So I have the exact same problem.

When my IBM M1015 is connected to the PCI-E it wont get past this page. Sometimes it wont even show that picture, the system boots but there's no picture, the monitor says there's no signal, I've even experienced the system rebooting on its own after ~20sec. If I remove the IBM M1015 the system boots as normal. It started doing this yesterday, the day before that I was trying to install Debian with M1015 connected and that was causing no problems whatsoever.

So is there something wrong with my hardware since I've been able to boot normally with the M1015 connected and now I'm not? Or should I find an old computer and flash the M1015 to IT mode?

EDIT: Here is all the hardware installed in my NAS.
Parts list:

• CPU: Intel Pentium G3220T (ordered) (arrived)
• CPU cooler: Noctua NH-L9i (ordered) (arrived)
• RAM: Kingston HyperX Black 4GB 1333MHz (ordered) (arrived)
• Motherboard: MSI B85I (ordered) (arrived)
• Power supply: SilverStone SFX ST45SF-G (ordered) (arrived)
• Case: Lian-Li PC-Q25B (ordered) (arrived)
• Expansion card: IBM ServeRAID M1015 (ordered) (arrived)
• Storage: SeaGate NAS HDD ST4000VN000 4TB x 4 (ordered) (arrived)
• USB for OS: SanDisk Cruzer Fit 8GB or 16GB (ordered)
• Other: Noctua NF-A14 PWM, Noctua NF-F12 PWM, Mini SAS to 4 SATA x 2, cable ties (ordered) (arrived)

Did you try attaching a drive to it? (and disabling all "modern" features in the motherboard's BIOS like UEFI settings for boot drives, USBs, etc.).

I purchased a second M1015 and flashed with an UEFI motherboard: I had to wait about 20 minutes before I could see the magic prompt :)

 

[Shaqalac]

Did you try attaching a drive to it? (and disabling all "modern" features in the motherboard's BIOS like UEFI settings for boot drives, USBs, etc.).

Haven't tried this yet, will give it a go and then I'll return.

I purchased a second M1015 and flashed with an UEFI motherboard: I had to wait about 20 minutes before I could see the magic prompt :)

So to bypass this I simply need to flash my M1015 before I've even installed my OS or before I'll be able to install it?
From this guide it says I should make a DOS bootable USB drive. Just to be clear, I could use this guide/program to format my USB drive to a DOS bootable USB drive and then I'll just transfer these files to the USB drive. After that I should be able to boot from the USB drive and flash the M1015?

 

[panz]

Haven't tried this yet, will give it a go and then I'll return.



So to bypass this I simply need to flash my M1015 before I've even installed my OS or before I'll be able to install it?
From this guide it says I should make a DOS bootable USB drive. Just to be clear, I could use this guide/program to format my USB drive to a DOS bootable USB drive and then I'll just transfer these files to the USB drive. After that I should be able to boot from the USB drive and flash the M1015?

Flash to IT mode is the first operation you have to do. Moreover - with FreeNAS - you don't "install" any OS at all, just because your OS will reside on an USB stick.

After flashing, the M1015 becomes "transparent" to the OS so ZFS can use it to directly access (and control) your disks.

Those two links are good; I added "shellx64.efi" to USB stick, from ArchLinux UEFI page (scroll down until you find the section Obtaining UEFI Shell)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface

Then I read these two articles (do not use those info to flash your card; simply read them to understand the underlying process)

http://brycv.com/blog/2012/flashing-it-firmware-to-lsi-sas9211-8i/

http://www.0x00.to/post/2013/04/07/Flash-IBM-ServeRAID-M1015-to-LSI9211-8i-with-UEFI-mainboard

In the second one (see the Comments section) you can read a note from me.

 

[Shaqalac]

You followed this guide right?
http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/
Did you just downloaded the files he has provided or did you downloaded the updated once somewhere else, as his post is from the start of 2012?

 

[panz]

You followed this guide right?
http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/
Did you just downloaded the files he has provided or did you downloaded the updated once somewhere else, as his post is from the start of 2012?

I followed that guide. Just unpack those files into the USB key (I used a standard MS-DOS bootable USB, not a FreeDOS one, but this latter should work too) then download the firmware you need (v. 16 actually) from LSI site:

1) go to LSI --> Support and fill the search as in the attached jpeg

2) after search results show the page (be patient, sometimes the LSI site is slow) expand the results and click to "Archived";

3) scroll down until you find this download 9211_8i_Package_P16_IR_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows

4) unpack and get the firmware (you don't need the BIOS, just the IT firmware);

5) put the firmware into the USB root directory (it will ask you to overwrite the file already present);

6) boot the machine (it will boot DOS); be sure to have some drives attached to the M1015, with the right cable;

7) now run megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin + megarec -cleanflash 0;

8) after reboot enter the UEFI shell (F11 + "boot from UEFI" in the Supermicro motherboards);

9) enter the required commands to access the UEFI shell (in my situation fs0 followed by a colon), then type "ls" to be sure you're in);

10) use these commands REPLACING sas2flsh with sas2flash (sas2flsh is for DOS only, but now you're using ShellEFI, right?):
sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom (sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin if OptionROM is not needed)

sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500605bxxxxxxxxx (x= numbers for SAS address)

11) reboot.

Done :)

 

[Shaqalac]

I've used this tool to format my Kingston 4GB USB stick to a bootable MS DOS stick, should do the trick right?

6) Can you very briefly explain why this is important or if it will make a difference whether a drive is attached or not and should I attach all 4 drives that will be in my array?

7) So run;
megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
and then
megarec -cleanflash 0;
or white both in one command with a "+" in between?

10) "now you're using ShellEFI, right?)" I guess since we are in the UEFI at this point.
"sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin if OptionROM is not needed" is there a way to tell whether OptionROM is needed or not?

Cheers Shaqalac.

 

[panz]

I've used this tool to format my Kingston 4GB USB stick to a bootable MS DOS stick, should do the trick right?

6) Can you very briefly explain why this is important or if it will make a difference whether a drive is attached or not and should I attach all 4 drives that will be in my array?

7) So run;
megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
and then
megarec -cleanflash 0;
or white both in one command with a "+" in between?

10) "now you're using ShellEFI, right?)" I guess since we are in the UEFI at this point.
"sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin if OptionROM is not needed" is there a way to tell whether OptionROM is needed or not?

Cheers Shaqalac.

For USB bootable media creation I used these instructions:

http://www.howtogeek.com/136987/how-to-create-a-bootable-dos-usb-drive/

Without at least 1 drive attached, my M1015 refused to "show" itself and cannot be detected during USB boot process. I have to confess that I don't know the reason :)

Sorry to have induced you to a possibly error. The right command line I used is:

megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin

[allow the system to print the ok result on screen as a consequence of successful command commit] then

megarec -cleanflash 0

After the above commands print OK you should reboot (I strongly recommend you to feed your server with an UPS during the flash operation: if power is interrupted you are in a big trouble...)

After reboot enter the UEFI Shell. To access your USB in UEFI shell try

Code:

fs0:

without the 1. ("1."is added by this forum software when you write commands within code tags; I had to write it between code tags because otherwise it automatically generated an emoticon)

then

sas2flash -o -f 2118it.bin

You can use (= it's your choice) to not install the ROM (a.k.a. BIOS) on the M1015 because FreeNAS doesn't need it and - without the ROM - the boot process is faster. But if you need to use the M1015 in the future (not for FreeNAS use) you have to install the ROM (my opinion: don't install it and you'll be very happy with your M1015 and FreeNAS).

after successful entering those commands the final touch is:

sas2flash -o -sasadd 500605b0xxxxxxxx

where xxxxxxxx is _your_ SAS address (you can read that on a stick glued on your card; I took a photo of that for future reference so I don't need to open the chassis each time I commit an update).

Please forgive me for bad writing: as you can read, English is not my mother language.

 

[kc10kevin]

Quick question: Is it an absolute necessity to erase the firmware from the card first (using megarc)? Will not work in UEFI Shell. Some "How-To's" for flashing the M1015 do not show erasing the old firware first.

Below is my configuration (Same as panz):

FreeNAS-9.2.1.3-RELEASE-x64 (dc0c46b).
Intel Xeon 1230 V2.
Supermicro X9SCM-F.
32 GB of Kingston KVR16E11/8 ECC RAM.

Here is the problem. I have tried to boot to the USB without using the UEFI shell without any success. From the BIOS, I select the USB drive from the list of bootable items (BIOS) and the screen blacks out, then goes back to the BIOS menu. It lists the USB as "UEFI: USB............" I have no problem booting into the UEFI Shell, using fs0: then I can see the contents of the USB. Of course I can only execute the UFI commands from there. megarc will not execute.

Any ideas on how to erase the flash with my setup?

Before I proceed, I'd either like to see if anyone has a solution or go ahead and just flash the card with sas2flash without erasing.

Thanks in advance for your time.

 

[cyberjock]

On that board you MUST do the erasing and flashing from the UEFI shell.

 

[cyberjock]

Oh, and you MUST erase the card before you can flash it. If you don't it'll tell you somethign like "this card is not flashable".