Updating LSI Firmware

[jerryrw]

Greetings,
I am attempting to install Truenas and am running into issues to the point of a dead end. I purchased an LSI/Broadcom Megaraid 2008 from recommendations all over the web. From my research now, I need to load a different firmware (IT) onto the card. I spent a couple of hours finding out that my new motherboard will not boot into legacy mode. (it can, but no video; says so in the bios) I managed to get a USB stick to boot into a UEFI shell. My issue now is sas2flash.efi (versions 17, 18, and 20) says no card found.

It shows up with lspci under Linux, and all of the drives show up when in the UEFI shell. It does not put any text on the screen during post.

Most solutions say to download the megaraid tool. I can't find any live links to the correct efi version of the tool, just exe. I'm running out of options with about 30 tabs open.

Help is appreciated.

If I can't get this running, can a more modern PCI sata controller work with Truenas?
Thanks

 

[Ericloewe]

Yeah, that tool is DOS-only. There may be some info on a UEFI alternative over at the STH forums, but I'm not personally aware of one.

I spent a couple of hours finding out that my new motherboard will not boot into legacy mode. (it can, but no video; says so in the bios)

One option (not a great one unless you have the stuff on hand) is to use a discrete GPU that still has a legacy BIOS ROM.

My issue now is sas2flash.efi (versions 17, 18, and 20) says no card found.

Yeah, sas2flash is for IT/IR cards only. MegaRAID cards have a completely separate software stack (which was only unified for the SAS4 cards).

It shows up with lspci under Linux, and all of the drives show up when in the UEFI shell. It does not put any text on the screen during post.

That means that it has the (MegaRAID) UEFI Extension ROM on it, which feels kind of unusual for an SAS2008 in MegaRAID mode (they're typically pulls from old servers, as-new stock lifted from old servers when they were initially commissioned, etc., so not the sort of stuff typically kept up to date - the UEFI extension ROM was only introduced towards the end of the SAS2008's sales life).

If I can't get this running, can a more modern PCI sata controller work with Truenas?

There's nothing wrong with the SAS2008, so the question is a bit misleading. If you can't figure out the crossflash process, the options are the usual ones:

• SAS2008 in IT mode (pre-crossflashed or native HBA)
• SAS2308 in IT mode (pre-crossflashed or native HBA)
• Franken-SAS2308 using a Dell H710 variant
• SAS3008 in IT mode (pre-crossflashed or native HBA)
• Some other IT mode LSI SAS3 controller

 

[jerryrw]

Thanks for the reply. I went up in the attic and dug out an older machine. It can boot legacy (once) but then has another error. (sigh) Failed to initialize PAL. This machine won't boot into UEFI with the card installed; just fine without it but not with it. And...now it won't boot into Legacy with the card installed. This is rapidly becoming not worth it for a home lab.

 

[jerryrw]

After 13 straight hours of this, I'm throwing in the towel. I just ordered a (cheaper) card from ebay that claims to have the correct ver20 IT firmware on it. We will see.