I'm still confused. LSI 9220-8i. IT Flashing, DOS & UEFI Errors

[FreddyFlint10]

Hi.
My Starting Point I Read
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/confused-about-that-lsi-card-join-the-crowd.11901/

Had a read of
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...id-m1015-and-no-lsi-sas-adapters-found.27445/
& created 2 usb sticks as a result

I have read the following...
https://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/
https://linustechtips.com/main/topi...ard-to-it-mode-for-zfssoftware-raid-tutorial/
http://brycv.com/blog/2012/flashing-it-firmware-to-lsi-sas9211-8i/

Download just about everything from but I think there wrong files, see below
https://www.broadcom.com/products/storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9210-8i#downloads

So now onto my concerns before I re-attempt to try and flash my card. Previous attempts so far
I have followed several steps and guides and received the following errors in BIOS/UEFI.
- Failed to Initialise PAL
- some dos error. Version wrong or file not found or something stupid dont remember
- EFI - Incorrect version
- EFI - Command Not Allowed without an adaptor!

I'm Using Linux Mint 17.3, on an ASUS H81M-Plus Motherboard.
I have no other PC where I can plug in the card.
I have an old win 7 box that I managed to resurrect so I could use the 'rufus' tool on.
Q- Does anyone know of a Linux tool that I could use? Please.

I purchased from eBay
IBM ServeRaid M1015 46M0861 LSI SAS9220-8i SAS/SATA PCI-E RAID Controller

looks like this, See Attached (IBM ServeRaid)

and BIOS/UFEI Boot Screen Identifies it as this, See Attached (IMG_20170520)

When I use the command lspci -nn I get the result
LSI Logic / Symbios Logic MegaRAID SAS 2008 [Falcon] [1000:0073] (rev 03)
and when i google this the following is found
https://hwraid.le-vert.net/wiki/LSIMegaRAIDSAS
with DELL PERC H310 mini - at the end.

-Q Is my card a Dell PERC or at they indicating that this listing INCLUDES Dell PERC cards ?

-Q According to the First article, Is an LSI SAS2008 is the same as LSI 9211-8i ? yes no

-Q Do I flash my card to P16 according to previous articles or the Latest P20 ?

When coping files to USB drives, I found that the more recent P20 files list the firmware as
2108it.bin - 722,644 Bytes
yet most (if not all) of the other referenced P20 files list the firmware as
2118it.bin - 722,708 Bytes

Q- Which one should I be using ?

Q- In one forum post
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/confirmation-please-lsi-9211-i8-flashing-to-p20.40373/
Blazestar has used commands from within the freeNAS OS.
Q- Why wont these commands work from Linux ? "command not found" and yes I am in the correct folder

Confused over the LSI board numbers.
Byrc is SAS2008-8i
FreeNAS and others SAS9211-8i & 2118it.bin
downloads I found HBA 9210-8i
I purchase a SAS9220-8i
--These all refer to M1015.

Q- Are they all the same ? (The 8i means 8 internal ports Yes?)

OK I think that's all for now. My brain is fried and my head hurts from all this reading and thinking.
Thanks In Advance.
I know this question has been asked before, and I new to all this, so i thank you for your patiences with me.
Not to mention I am now really confused. The more I read, the more I don't know.

 

[Spearfoot]

Flashing cards can be daunting and confusing, especially if you haven't done it before.

I own an M1015 that's the twin brother of your card. I flashed it to version P20.00.07.00 of the LSI firmware using the fileset I attached as a zip file on this forum post:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...i-sas-adapters-found.27445/page-2#post-301617

Download that zip file and extract it onto a DOS-bootable USB drive. You will need to edit the second of the two batch files that flash the card.

The first batch file (TOITMD1.BAT) clears the HBA with these commands:

Code:

megarec -cleanflash 0
megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
echo Reboot and run the next batch file

The second batch file (TOITMD2.BAT) flashes the HBA to IT mode and sets the SAS ID. You will need to edit this batch file to specify your card's complete 16-digit hex SAS ID and to determine whether or not to flash the ROM BIOS. You don't need the ROM BIOS unless you plan to boot from the HBA. On my system I don't boot from the HBA, so I use this command:

Code:

sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin

If you plan on booting from the card, use this command instead:

Code:

sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom

Install the M1015 in your Linux (or any other) PC and boot DOS from the USB drive. Change to directory \M1015 (or whichever directory you used to install the files) and execute TOITMD1.BAT. Reboot the system, change to the \M1015 directory, and execute TOITMD2.BAT.

That should get you up and going. Good luck!

 

[Spearfoot]

If the DOS USB drive approach doesn't work for you, there are other ways to skin this cat...

FreeNAS comes with the FreeBSD version of sas2flash already installed.

Linux and FreeBSD versions of the sas2flash are available for download from the broadcom website if you want to go this route. The Linux version is available here.

Whether using Linux or FreeBSD, your sequence of commands will be something like this:

Code:

sas2flash -o -e 6
sas2flash -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flash -o -sasadd XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

This will erase/clear the card, flash it with the IT mode firmware and ROM BIOS, and set the SAS ID. If you don't need the ROM BIOS, remove the -b mptsas2.rom option. Replace the X's with the 16-digit hex SAS ID of your card.

Note that 2118it.bin and mptsas2.rom are the files I included in the zip file archive referenced above.

Good luck!

 

[mrbenza]

I had the same problem..
First: use the @Spearfoot file..
Download them and create a dos bootable usb stick.
Bot from usb...

YOU MUST WAIT.. when you see the screen posted before.. don't touch anything..

After a while you can see the dos prompt.
Now you MUST use the MEGAREC tool..

megarec -cleanflash 0
megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
Reboot

After the next reboot you can use the sas2flash utility from the usb stick.. flash *.bin file, sas address.. ecc



Inviato dal mio SM-G930F utilizzando Tapatalk

 

[FreddyFlint10]

The second batch file (TOITMD2.BAT) flashes the HBA to IT mode and sets the SAS ID. You will need to edit this batch file to specify your card's complete 16-digit hex SAS ID and to determine whether or not to flash the ROM BIOS. You don't need the ROM BIOS unless you plan to boot from the HBA. On my system I don't boot from the HBA, so I use this command:

Code:

sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin

Thanks "Spearfoot". I was wondering about the importance of the 'ROM' file. Very Helpful, as it was pointed out here
https://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/
But they didn't explain why. Thanks

 

[FreddyFlint10]

Thanks again 'Spearfoot'. Worked like a charm.
I will make one observation. Could we please have these instructions modified?
I would like to see, (as I believe this is what is happening) for older pre-UEFI motherboards, 1st create dos bootable usb, files, blah blah.
If you have a UEFI enabled motherboard, you'll need TWO steps. 1st dos bootable, and "wipe" card. Reboot. 2nd step, uefi boot and sas2flash card.
I point this out, as yes I was confused, as I read that if you reboot at the wrong time you brick the card. Kinda scary. What I was doing was typing in the command in both DOS & UEFI, of sas2flsh/sas2flash.efi -listall, and nothing was found or an error. From what I have been able to piece together, it is due to something been removed from BIOS to make room for UEFI, and therefore PCIe cards are not presented to the user (or exactly whatever I dunno, it's been 20years since I studied BIOS)
Could we (as in you or another Moderator) modify or create a new sticky, detailing this. And before you do, if anyone else wants to add a remark, either technical or noobical to help people out.
Thanks to all FreeNas'er for you help. -Fred
PS. Ahh the good ol reboot. Reminds me of the Win95 days. "Error. Detected a key pressed on keyboard" "Reboot Required"

 

[Spearfoot]

Glad you were able to work things out!

There are quite a few tutorials available on the 'net for flashing LSI (and other) HBA cards and some of them are quite good. Plus it's hard to write definitive instructions when there are so many different system boards out there, each with its own quirks, some not supporting UEFI, etc.

 

[DJABE]

LSI sas2flash does not support -e (erase) option in any other form/version but legacy DOS or UEFI. So BSD or Linux versions of the tool cannot erase card's firmware and BIOS.
And on most (newer) systems DOS version does not work due to "PAL error" or A20 (himem). So pretty much we're left with UEFI only for those tasks.

I wanted to comment another topic - but it's locked for some (xD) reason?! https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-flash-lsi-9211-8i-using-efi-shell.50902/

All UEFI part can be left out - all one needs to do is simply put EFI version of sas2flash tool in the root of USB stick, alongside with desired firmware and optional BIOS ROM. So no neet for "boot/efi" and other stuff.

 

[anderstn]

This is undoubtedly a stupid question but where is the SAS address that's mentioned? Can i retrieve it somehow in Windows or Linux before i flash the card?

 

[2nd-in-charge]

Code:

sas2flash -list

will display your current controller and info including SAS address.
You can also turn the card over and take a picture of the sticker.

 

[anderstn]

Thanks for sharing the software method @2nd-in-charge. I did find the sticker a short while after posting the comment, but a software approach is always the preferred option.

As for the UEFI, or rather EFI boot, that is not really a problem. However I did waste a good 2-3 hours with it because my Asus board just threw me back to BIOS unless the shell was located in \EFI\boot\ and named bootx64.efi. Also some shell's don't really work well with the EFI tool and one guide I used specifically recommended using a shell from github were only version 1 worked with the tool. Since the repo that was linked to had no proper versioning that proved to be a bit of a pain so in the end i used the latest version of the tools and the firmware I could find and stole the EFI shell from one of the many guides I found online. I believe the actual shell in use was some free Intel EFI shell. I'm not sure how well that would work with an AMD system, but it worked fine on my Intel machine.

 

[WalterG62]

Hi
I'm a first timer here with the same problem.
Tried to follow Spearfoot's instructions but when entering the command TOITMD1.BAT I get the message "Bad command or filename" !!!
Probably doing something wrong but I don't know what.

Regards

 

[WalterG62]

I was able to run both batch files but after the second one I still get the error "Failed to initialize PAL"
Don't get it anymore!!!

 

[Spearfoot]

I was able to run both batch files but after the second one I still get the error "Failed to initialize PAL"
Don't get it anymore!!!

I believe that error message means you will need to flash your card using an EFI shell:

How-to: Flash LSI 9211-8i using EFI shell

My used HW: USB stick + Desktop PC (not the server board) with a motherboard Asus P9X79 WS (hosting i7-3930K + 16GB RAM but it doesn’t matter). The motherboard shall support UEFI version >=1.0 and be able to access USB from BIOS/EFI shell. Step-by-step procedure: Insert the controller card in...

www.truenas.com

 

[WalterG62]

Thanks for pointing me to that thread. I was able to flash the controller using the uefi method.
Only thing is that it has no SAS address. Any suggestions how I go about that?

Regards

 

[jgreco]

Add one; use sas2flsh -o -sasadd <sasaddress>

 

[WalterG62]

Don't get it anymore! I managed to flash the card but I'm not able anymore to get the sas2flsh command to work.
The whole EFI thing gets me confused. I followed the guide from the other thread you pointed me to and all goes wel to this point "If you use ASUS UEFI BIOS Utility in advanced mode, mouse click on the Exit (not by using keyboard “Esc”), in the next dialog select “Launch EFI Shell from filesystem device”. Other BIOS should behave similarly. "
I'm unable to select my USB drive