M1015 / X9SCM-F USB Firmware Tools


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Hi all,

 

This is another one of those things that I see a lot of queries about and there is a lot of information around various posts/forums etc going through this.  This is an effort to consolidate all of that into one useful download that you can put onto a bootable USB stick and use immediately.  I will keep it up to date with new firmware revisions as they happen.

 

This set of files contains the following:

(note that you can just use a subset of the files (you might not have a X9SCM-F motherboard, but you need to flash a M1015 for example. That's fine, you can still make use of this.)

 

  • LSI 9211 firmware for cross-flashing a M1015 into IR or IT mode P15 (2012-11-15)
  • M1015 original firmware for cross-flashing back (not sure why you ever would but hey!)
  • LSI drivers for most MegaRaid SAS adapters and various OS
  • X9SCM firmware and accompanying files v2.0b (2012-09-17)
  • X9SCM IPMI firmware 01.86 (2012-11-14)

 

NB: X9SCM-iiF users, do NOT use the BIOS files here to upgrade your motherboard.  You can replace the ones in the archive with the correct ones from the Supermicro site if you really want to.  I don't have a iiF, so I don't intend including those files in the archive.

 

Credit where credit is due:

 

mobilenvidia @ laptopvideo2go.com for his thread on M1015 flashing and files - http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/29059-sas2008-lsi92409211-firmware-files/

newbie_dude @ these forums for his notes on flashing via UEFI on a X9SCM - http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=25891.msg225711#msg225711

madburg @ these forums for his original mammoth thread on LSI SAS cards - http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.0

 

Probably some others that I forgot - thanks to you guys too!

 

I will also update the unRAID wiki with a link to this post.

 

Download here:

 

Date:              |  LSI/X9/IPMI ver | Download Link

2013-03-29: P15/2.0b/186      https://www.dropbox.com/s/pzqex4p3jgbsdug/M1015_X9SCM_BOOT_P15.zip?dl=0

2013-04-18: P16/2.0b/186      https://www.dropbox.com/s/k5r8l05nkvlmu1o/M1015_X9SCM_BOOT_P16.zip?dl=0

2013-11-01: P17/2.0b/238      https://www.dropbox.com/s/7lfo79fb2gfvvrw/M1015_X9SCM_BOOT_P17.zip?dl=0

 

Creating a bootable USB stick

 

 

  • Download the excellent bootable USB utility 'Rufus' from here:  http://rufus.akeo.ie/
  • Insert a USB stick into your PC (note that the contents WILL be wiped, so back them up if you don't want that to happen)
  • Set up the utility as follows, ensuring that the device selected in the first dropdown is the USB stick you want to use (note you can make the volume label anything you like):

 

http://i.imgur.com/5xbkWkJ.jpg

 

 

  • Click Start and wait for your USB stick to be created
  • Unzip the contents of the M1015_X9SCM_BOOT.zip file directly onto the USB stick
  • Follow one of the subsequent posts in this thread depending on what you are wanting to flash
Edited by BetaQuasi
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M1015 Cross Flashing

 

Disclaimer - ALL firmware flashing has the potential to go wrong.  You can brick your devices (make them unuseable) if you are not careful and follow the steps EXACTLY.  Also note that a power outage will also typically cause your hardware to be bricked, so wherever possible use a UPS!

 

NB:    If you try the below procedure on a X9SCM motherboard, it will likely not work and you'll get a "PAL" error.  You can still use your X9SCM to flash, but I would recommend updating the X9SCM BIOS to the latest version first prior to doing this.  You will need to boot into your motherboard's EFI Shell as per the instructions in the next post.

 

Before doing any of the following (except firmware updates, eg P14 IT to P15 IT), get the SAS address of the card.  It's on the back of the card and is a green sticker like the following:

 

iQDUazN.jpg

 



 

M1015 -> 9211-IT

 

  • Boot from the USB drive you created as per the first post in this thread
  • Enter the following at the command prompt

 

megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
megarec -cleanflash 0

 

  • Reboot your PC (CTRL-ALT-DEL) and boot back onto the USB stick

 

sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500605b0xxxxxxxx (replace the xx's with the SAS address from your card)

 

  • Reboot your PC (CTRL-ALT-DEL)
  • DONE!

 



 

M1015 -> 9211-IR

 

  • Boot from the USB drive you created as per the first post in this thread
  • Enter the following at the command prompt

 

megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
megarec -cleanflash 0

 

  • Reboot your PC (CTRL-ALT-DEL) and boot back onto the USB stick

 

sas2flsh -o -f 2118ir.bin -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500605b0xxxxxxxx (replace the xx's with the SAS address from your card)

 

  • Reboot your PC (CTRL-ALT-DEL)
  • DONE!

 



 

9211-IT -> IR

 

  • Boot from the USB drive you created as per the first post in this thread
  • Enter the following at the command prompt

 

megarec -cleanflash 0

 

  • Reboot your PC (CTRL-ALT-DEL) and boot back onto the USB stick

 

sas2flsh -o -f 2118ir.bin -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500605b0xxxxxxxx (replace the xx's with the SAS address from your card)

 

  • Reboot your PC (CTRL-ALT-DEL)
  • DONE!

 



 

9211-IR -> IT

 

  • Boot from the USB drive you created as per the first post in this thread
  • Enter the following at the command prompt

 

megarec -cleanflash 0

 

  • Reboot your PC (CTRL-ALT-DEL) and boot back onto the USB stick

 

sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500605b0xxxxxxxx (replace the xx's with the SAS address from your card)

 

  • Reboot your PC (CTRL-ALT-DEL)
  • DONE!

 



 

Cross-flashing Mutiple Adapters

 

When multiple adapters are present, you can either attempt to flash all of them at once (I don't recommend this - grab the LSI SAS2Flash Utility reference guide from their site if you want to try it) or flash them individually by telling the utility which card you want to flash.  Some commands to assist with this follow:

 

sas2flsh -o -listall     (This will show you a list of all your adapters and give them a reference number)
sas2flsh -o -c x -listsasadd     (Replace 'x' with the number of the relevant card gleaned from the previous command - this is another way of getting the SAS address of the card)

 

Once you have the card number, you need to alter the previous commands slightly to select the controller you want to flash.  The alteration involves adding in "-c x" where x is the controller number.  Note that the sequence of parameters is important as this tells the utility what sequence to run the commands in.

 

As an example, if you were flashing controller #2 with IT firmware, it would look like this:

 

sas2flsh -o -c 2 -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flsh -o -c 2 -sasadd 500605b0xxxxxxxx (replace the xx's with the SAS address from your card)

 



 

Upgrading firmware

 

Upgrading firmware, for example from P14 to P15, is a simple matter of flashing the BIOS and firmware.  No need to reset the SAS address, eg:

 

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

 

The above will flash the latest (P15) IT firmware from this collection of utilities to your card.  No need to do anything else (don't erase the existing firmware/BIOS and don't reset the SAS address).

 

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M1015 Cross Flashing from EFI Shell

 

Some motherboards, including the popular Supermicro X9SCM-F and X9SCM-IIF, require flashing to be done in the built-in EFI shell.  All switches and parameters are identical to the dos-based SAS2FLSH.EXE, but instead you need to call SAS2FLASH.EFI (note the 'A' is included in the EFI version.)

 

  • Follow the first couple of steps from the previous post to prepare the M1015 and then reboot (i.e. the two 'megarec' commands)
  • When booting your PC/Server, choose the 'Boot Menu' option (on a Supermicro X9 board, this is F11.)
  • Select 'EFI Shell' from the list and hit enter
  • Once booted into the EFI shell, we need to access the USB stick.  It will be fsx, where x may be 0, 1, 2 depending on how many sticks/drives are attached.  Type "fs0:" and hit enter
  • Type 'ls' to see what files are shown.  If they match what you expect on your USB stick, then you're good to go.  Otherwise, try fs1: etc until you find it
  • Type "Shell_Full.efi" and hit enter.  This will start up a more complete UEFI shell
  • Use the same commands as for SAS2FLSH.EXE to flash your card, but substituting in SAS2FLASH.EFI:

 

sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flash.efi -o -sasadd 500605bxxxxxxxxx (replace the xx's with the SAS address from your card)

 

  • DONE!

 

Cross-flashing Mutiple Adapters

 

When multiple adapters are present, you can either attempt to flash all of them at once (I don't recommend this - grab the LSI SAS2Flash Utility reference guide from their site if you want to try it) or flash them individually by telling the utility which card you want to flash.  Some commands to assist with this follow:

 

sas2flash.efi -o -listall     (This will show you a list of all your adapters and give them a reference number)
sas2flash.efi -o -c x -listsasadd     (Replace 'x' with the number of the relevant card gleaned from the previous command - this is another way of getting the SAS address of the card)

 

Once you have the card number, you need to alter the previous commands slightly to select the controller you want to flash.  The alteration involves adding in "-c x" where x is the controller number.  Note that the sequence of parameters is important as this tells the utility what sequence to run the commands in.

 

As an example, if you were flashing controller #2 with IT firmware, it would look like this:

 

sas2flash.efi -o -c 2 -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flash.efi -o -c 2 -sasadd 500605b0xxxxxxxx (replace the xx's with the SAS address from your card)

 

Upgrading firmware

 

Upgrading firmware, for example from P14 to P15, is a simple matter of flashing the BIOS and firmware.  No need to reset the SAS address, eg:

 

sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom

 

The above will flash the latest (P15) IT firmware from this collection of utilities to your card.  No need to do anything else (don't erase the existing firmware/BIOS and don't reset the SAS address).

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X9SCM BIOS Updating

 

This one is nice and easy!

 

  • Boot from the USB stick
  • If you are currently on 1.1c or lower, type "AMI_1.BAT x9scm2.917" and hit enter.  Be patient, it takes a few minutes to complete.  After it has completed, reboot the PC.
  • After reboot, type "AMI2.BAT" and hit enter.  Note the lack of underscore, i.e. do NOT run AMI_2.BAT.  AMI_1.BAT tells you this before you reboot in the previous step.
  • If you are currently on 2.0a, type "AMI_2.BAT x9scm2.917" and hit enter.  Be patient, it takes a few minutes to complete.  After it has completed, reboot the PC.
  • Enter the BIOS by pressing DEL at the POST screen and check all configurations as required.  In my case, going from 1.1c to 2.0b disabled Intel VT-d and I had to re-enable it.  I also had to re-disable all the PXE booting crap that I don't want and fix the boot order to boot off my ESXi USB stick.
  • DONE!

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for nicely collecting all those info!

One question:

Do the instruction for M1015 also work for M1115 or are different files required?

Just in case anybody asks the same - successfully flashed 2 M1115 controllers to IT mode - seems to work as M1015 and recognized and initialized by unraid.

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X9SCM BIOS Updating

 

This one is nice and easy!

 

  • Boot from the USB stick
  • If you are currently on 1.1c or lower, type "AMI_1.BAT x9scm2.917" and hit enter.  Be patient, it takes a few minutes to complete.  After it has completed, reboot the PC.
  • After reboot, type "AMI2.BAT" and hit enter.  Note the lack of underscore, i.e. do NOT run AMI_2.BAT.  AMI_1.BAT tells you this before you reboot in the previous step.
  • If you are currently on 2.0a, type "AMI_2.BAT x9scm2.917" and hit enter.  Be patient, it takes a few minutes to complete.  After it has completed, reboot the PC.
  • Enter the BIOS by pressing DEL at the POST screen and check all configurations as required.  In my case, going from 1.1c to 2.0b disabled Intel VT-d and I had to re-enable it.  I also had to re-disable all the PXE booting crap that I don't want and fix the boot order to boot off my ESXi USB stick.
  • DONE!

 

QQ about flashing the MB BIOS...

 

Is it possible to do it over IPMI via Virtual Media?  Been trying to find an answer and have struck out.  I'm afraid that once the upgrade process starts it will kill the IPMI connection.

 

John

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Some motherboards, including the popular Supermicro X9SCM-F and X9SCM-IIF, require flashing to be done in the built-in EFI shell.

 

Not entirely true - I have flashed my 9211 (AOC USAS2-L8i) with unRAID running (array stopped), using the Linux flash tool - it only seems to be Microsoft/DOS environments which cause problems.

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P16 firmware is out - I'll be updating these tools with that version on the weekend, and will make a bootable .iso then as well.

 

EDIT - a P16-based version of the tools is up.. I'll do the .iso on the weekend.

 

Were you able to find a changelog anywhere for what changed in the P16 version of the firmware?  I looked through the LSI zip file and the only changelog I could find was the SAS2FLASH changelog and they only changed the copyright display date from 2012 to 2013.

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  • 2 weeks later...

BQ,

 

Thanks for the excellent summary on how to do this!!

 

While doing my own hunting around I came across another interesting page that provides some great background for those considering whether to buy the M1015.

 

http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-m1015-part-1-started-lsi-92208i/

 

On the page about cross-flashing here: http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/ He mentions leaving off the

-b mptsas2.rom

piece in order to get the card to boot faster at start. Seems kind of handy to me. Not that you will start your ESXi server very often, but it might be interesting to some, especially native unRAID installs.

 

Cheers.

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks for the informative thread, unfortunately, I have the most terrible luck with these things and none of it is working, I'm hoping I can get some help, or get a recommendation for an alternative card that is plug and play and will simply pass the drives to the OS.

 

This is my specs:

Chasis:

SUPERMICRO SuperChassis CSE-846A-R1200B Black 4U Rackmount Server Case 1200W Redundant

 

3x Sata card:

IBM ServeRaid M1015

 

CPU:

Intel Xeon E3 1230 V2 Quad Core Processor 3.3GHZ 8MB LGA1155 69W Retail Box

 

Mobo:

Supermicro MBD-X9SCM LGA1155 C204 DDR3 ECC 6SATA 4PCIE 2GBE IPMI 9USB2.0 mATX Motherboard

 

Ram:

Supermicro MEM-DR380L-HL01-EU13 8GB DDR3-1333 240PT 1.5V DIMM CL9 ECC Server Memory

 

SSD for OS:

Samsung 840 Series 120GB 2.5in SATA3 MDX Solid State Disk Flash Drive SSD

 

I looked at lot of guides through this forum and other forums and came up with the following steps: (Let me know if I miss anything)

 

<Boot off DOS USB stick>

 

Type in the following exactly:

 

megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin

megarec -cleanflash 0

 

<reboot, go in UEFI boot>

FSx:

execute: Shell_Full.efi

 

 

sas2flash.efi -l Flashlog.txt -o -f 2118it.bin

sas2flash.efi -o -sasadd 500605bxxxxxxxxx

<reboot>

 

Done!

 

I get an issue right when I try to use the megarec command. This is the error I get:

 

lrg-1693-img_20130611_1908451849833559.jpg

 

On another system I get a similar error:

 

lrg-1694-img_20130611_2033461324773848.jpg

 

 

I then decided to flash my bios as recommended, but even that, I can't do, this is the error I get when I run the ami_2.bat file (I'm already on 2.0)

 

lrg-1695-img_20130611_215253-1938146344.jpg

 

 

I am doing 1 card at a time, I get these issues with all 3 cards.  Also, 2 of the cards have the same SAS address, if I do manage to get this working, is that going to be an issue?

 

I also used the command to list the adaptors (not booted in so I forget it off hand) and it does detect it.  I also tried it in another slot.

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The cards shouldn't have the same SAS address - are you sure that one digit isn't different?  Or a letter O vs a number 0?  Letter I vs a number 1?

 

You're at a point where you're not even able to write the empty flash file to the card, and getting a page fault error.  Could be a motherboard issue... might also be worth trying one card at a time and making sure it is in the slot closest to the CPU (top 8x slot).  Ensure no other cards are present when you do this (HBA's or otherwise.)

 

The fact that you can't even flash the motherboard BIOS suggests a larger problem though.

 

Page faults could also be because of memory-related issues.  Is that a single stick you have?  If you have the option, try another stick (or pull one out if you have 2.)  Also probably worth running memtest86 to check your memory is 100%.

 

 

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Yep exact same. That's my luck lol. 

 

lrg-1696-img_20130611_2305251166004911.jpg

 

Never thought of ram... suppose it's a possibility.  Memtest86+ just locks up, but the old memtest runs....  so I wonder if it's indeed that.  I have the worse luck with computer builds and everything always points to ram but no matter how many times I change it it's not that.  But maybe I'll get lucky.

 

I don't have any spare ram, only non ECC.  Will that work at all?

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