LSI 9211-8i firmware issues

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74kumi

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Mar 16, 2015
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I just bought this card off amazon and it came with the v18 IR firmware and to my understanding for this to work smoothly with FreeNAS i need to get it to v20IT. So far I've tried using the x64 software to flash new bios and firmware but i get the-
ERROR: Cannot Flash IT Firmware over IR Firmware!
Firmware Image Validation Failed!
the card i have according to sas2flash
Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2008(B2)

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

0 SAS2008(B2) 18.00.00.00 11.00.00.08 07.39.02.00 00:21:00:00

when i run the sas2flash from the flash drive for dos I get a
ERROR: Failed to initialize PAL. Exiting program.

UEFI when i try to boot off I just cant on both the server and my desktop it just redirects me to the bios. Does someone have a way to do this or am i just screwed till i can get an older/different computer that can handle UEFI firmware update. Any help would be awesome.
 

Ericloewe

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Feb 15, 2014
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Double-check the firmware image you downloaded for correctness.
 

Redcoat

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Feb 18, 2014
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Did you erase the IR firmware before attempting to flash with the IT?
 
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The following Broadcom doc may be useful. It lists various firmware updating scenarios, and provides commands to use.

Flashing firmware and BIOS on LSI SAS HBAs

Going from IR to IT on DOS, it suggests:

Code:
sas2flsh -o -e 6
sas2flsh -o -f <firmware> -b <bios>
sas2flsh -o -f <UEFI BSD firmware>
 

Kumba

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May 24, 2017
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The PAL error is because you have a mobo with UEFI. The SAS2FLASH DOS command freaks out and won't run. The solution is to use the EFI version of sas2flash. That boils down to putting it on a properly formatted USB stick, booting to the EFI console, mounting the USB stick, and then FINALLY running SAS2FLASH.EFI.

Here's the EFI instructions that will help you get there:
https://www.bussink.ch/?tag=sas2flash

Depending upon how you look at it, it's about the same hassle as booting FreeDOS to run SAS2FLASH. It's just something new if you've never messed/used an EFI console before. I can tell you that the Linux/BSD SAS2FLASH is mostly useless for doing IR to IT swaps. You pretty much have to have the system up but no drives loading/using the card for it to work.

Plan B is to put the card in an old machine with a regular BIOS (NON-UEFI) and just use FreeDOS to run sas2flash. I actually PXE boot FreeDOS with all my common motherboard/HBA firmwares in the image to make life easy. That might be a bit much unless you do this often though.
 
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