LSI Controller FW updates IR/IT modes


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etec,

 

Which fw/package do I use ? Madburg's post only showed the IR version ?

 

20.10.1-0037 (APP-2.120.54-1235) / 15-APR-11

 

Nope... if you go down in that post you will find a link for (P11). This contains IR & IT firmwares.  ;)

 

I can see the drives during boot up in the LSI Bios, but not when Unraid starts.

 

Its supposed to see them even in IR mode ?

 

Now you can't see them since you are still on IBM and/or LSI MegaRaid firmware and these require single drive to be mapped as JBOD too, otherwise they will not showed to OS (only RAID volumes will).

 

In IR instead this isn't needed and single drive are automatically passed to OS as RAID volumes too. In IT every port is a 'simple' SATA AHCI port, with no option.

 

For more info read my topic I've linked to you before, in my previous post.

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I Tried flashing the FW via Madburg's post and a USB Boot Stick.

 

It removes the existing FW

 

Steps 1/2/3 fine.. Rebooted.. got the SAS Address

 

Now when I try to run the 5IR or 5IT.bat file I get an

 

ERROR: Failed to initialize PAL

You will have to use the UEFI boot method then.  Sounds like your MB like the SuperMicro X9SCM is not compatible with firmware flashing via dos boot USB stick.  Before I accidentally bricked it I used a SuperMicro C2SBA+II to flash mine via the USB boot method.  I have seen others post the UEFI boot method works on a X9SCM MB but I've never used it so cannot help.
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I Tried flashing the FW via Madburg's post and a USB Boot Stick.

 

It removes the existing FW

 

Steps 1/2/3 fine.. Rebooted.. got the SAS Address

 

Now when I try to run the 5IR or 5IT.bat file I get an

 

ERROR: Failed to initialize PAL

You will have to use the UEFI boot method then.  Sounds like your MB like the SuperMicro X9SCM is not compatible with firmware flashing via dos boot USB stick.  Before I accidentally bricked it I used a SuperMicro C2SBA+II to flash mine via the USB boot method.  I have seen others post the UEFI boot method works on a X9SCM MB but I've never used it so cannot help.

 

i have an SuperMicro X9SCM-iif and reflashed two M1015 cards via UEFI without no probs about two years ago - works like a charm :)

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Lord Have Mercy is this not intuitive.. for Unraid to take off this has to get better..

 

Finally it worked on UEFI mode and now up to v 20... the drives are online and formatting

 

 

There are so many things not updated in the wiki and other places is anyone doing this on a regular basis ?

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There are so many things not updated in the wiki and other places is anyone doing this on a regular basis ?

 

Are you interested?    ;D

 

There have been complaints from the very beginning about the wiki, and everyone *wants* the wiki to be better, but in the end almost no one actually has time to work on it.

 

It reminds me of the trash can or tree branch that falls into the road.  Most everyone slows and with difficulty gets around it, muttering that *someone* needs to move it off the road.  It's a rare person that will actually stop and remove it though.

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Lord Have Mercy is this not intuitive.. for Unraid to take off this has to get better..

 

Finally it worked on UEFI mode and now up to v 20... the drives are online and formatting

...

 

Formatting or preclearing?

 

About the Wiki... well I've noted too... but I think it's done to test your 'unRAID true believers skills'..!  ;D

 

Anyway, after reading and rereading on wiki and on forum... all parts begin to fit very well in the puzzle..!  ;)

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Hello!

Can anyone help me?

I have Supermicro chassis with BPN-ADP-E16-I card connected to sas217hd backplane. I want to set up raid 1 with 2 disks, but i cant.

Seems like this card (LSI Util shows it like SMC2008-IT) can not create raid 1...

Maybe i should write IR flash?

 

Your card seems to be an LSI 2008 controller based, programmed with an IT firmware (even if I am not able to precisely catalog it...).

 

If it's as I understood, YES, you need an IR firmware to get any RAID by card (from a Supermicro FAQ: " BPN-ADP-E16-L is in IT mode and supports JBOD only. ".)

 

BUT be very carefull on what exactly version do you need to use...  ???

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have a SuperMicro X10SL7-F with an onboard LSI 2308 that I can't get operational. I think it may have been defective since I purchased board over 12 months ago, but I just attempted to expand array and can't seem to get any of the onboard ports for this controller to work.

 

I've been at it off and on for a couple weeks and I think I've been doing everything correctly. I've followed all instructions to flash it w/ the v19 firmware into IT mode but this is the error I keep getting.

 

 

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

2308-1.jpg.72d4482edc905e5c8435c4aaaa6f766c.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have been trying for 3 days to flash a DELL 6/iR with no luck.  SASFLASH from the LSI support site was no help at all.  My fingers have blisters from GOOGLEing for help.  I'm so glad I found this thread!

 

Burned a 2G USB stick with RUFUS 2.2/FreeDOS.  I was getting an error saying SASFLASH could not run in DOS mode.

 

After downloading the zip files here, I found that sasflash-1.24.exe ran without the above mentioned error on my flash stick.

 

Dell PowerEdge R200 with the 6/iR HBA flashed without any problems.  I made some mods to the batch files to shorten the file names and to run sasflash-1.24.exe and all is good.

 

Thanks for the work!!!

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I just flashed the "new" P20 (20.0.04) FW onto my card. Running FlexRAID under Windows. It totally screwed my system causing my pooled drive and individual drives to drop out and performance to drop to transfer speeds in the K range not even MB!  ABSOLUTELY DISASTROUS.

 

Wanted to put it on record somewhere to make sure I never go back to that FW and to save anyone else the aggro.  Had to create an EFI flash drive to downgrade the FW back to P19. Suddenly I have speed again.

 

Quite how they can release such shite is beyond comprehension!

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Hello,

i search the web and tried alot, but now i dont know how to proceed further. I have got a Dell H310 and wanted to flash to IT-Mode P19. I used commands:

MegaRec -cleanflash 0

shutdown

sas2flsh -o -f 6GBSAS.FW

sas2flsh -o -reset

sas2flsh -o -f 2118P7.BIN

sas2flsh -o -reset

sas2flsh -o -f 2118IT.BIN -b FW2657A.rom

sas2flsh -o -sasadd xxxx

but the card wont boot any drive and it dont show any configuration for the card while booting.

 

first time i saw that the card was recognized as lsi sas2008(G2) but now it shows lsi 2008(???) and i dont know what todo - need help. mainboard is a consumer gigabyte ga75m thx

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Hello,

i search the web and tried alot, but now i dont know how to proceed further. I have got a Dell H310 and wanted to flash to IT-Mode P19. I used commands:

MegaRec -cleanflash 0

shutdown

sas2flsh -o -f 6GBSAS.FW

sas2flsh -o -reset

sas2flsh -o -f 2118P7.BIN

sas2flsh -o -reset

sas2flsh -o -f 2118IT.BIN -b FW2657A.rom

sas2flsh -o -sasadd xxxx

but the card wont boot any drive and it dont show any configuration for the card while booting.

 

first time i saw that the card was recognized as lsi sas2008(G2) but now it shows lsi 2008( ??? ) and i dont know what todo - need help. mainboard is a consumer gigabyte ga75m thx

The method to flash a H310 was posted in this thread by Fireball3.  And the commands to use are coded in the ".bat" files in the archive earlier in this thread.  I've done 4 H310's so far myself it works great. I use Fireball3's method and flash from USB dos boot.  Here is his post http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.msg259006#msg259006
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Thx for reply but my browser says that the archive has a virus or spyware?! And can you please direactly point to the commands for flashing? there are lots in this thread and this which was writen in post 581 are the same i use

 

edit: ok downloaded with another browser and will check this - thx so far

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I know the pain others have felt crossflashing a Dell PERC H310 to LSI IT firmware.  After hours of trial and error I found the single file required to go from the Dell 6GBPSAS.fw to 2118IT.bin in the EFI shell.  I have to new of a board and don't have anything that would work with the DOS sas2flsh.exe due to the PAL error.

 

I had to download the LSI EFI_Install_P5.zip and use that sas2flash.efi to flash the P7 firmware.  It gave me the option to flash over the Dell IR firmware.  Here are the steps abbreavated.

 

Follow steps 1-4 using the DOS tools and megarec.

5. boot into EFI shell and flash P7 2118it.bin using the P5 sas2flash.efi

6. Flash whatever version you want now.  I'm running P16 along with the boot rom so I can see my drives at boot.

7. Flash your SAS address.

 

Note: I attempted to fix the SBR with the P17 sas2flash using (sas2flash.efi -o -sbr) but it doesn't work.  The controller still operates normally and you wouldn't even know it had an issue unless you went looking for it.

 

It would be nice to add the efi files to the zip so others like myself wouldn't be searching for hours.  I never found an answer and just tried everything I could think of.

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I would modify the original thread and link to your post Maglin.

Just add the files needed to your post and be a bit more precise.

 

I've never used EFI shell, so I can't comment on your instructions.

Are steps 1-4 doable under EFI shell also?

How did you perform stops 6 and 7? With EFI shell also?

Maybe highlight what is done in EFI and what in DOS.

Where is the deviation from the original instruction (DOS).

Why didn't you flash P19?

Please add the answers to your upper post to have all the info in one post.

 

Thanks for reporting your experience!

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First of all, thank you to the OP and other posters for the hard work on this thread. 

 

I need to setup a Lenovo ThinkServer TS440 for unRAID.  It has a Raid 500 card which is a rebranded LSI 9240-8i using the LSI SAS2008 chipset.  I need to flash it to IT mode.  A few questions:

 

1. Is the zip file  for SAS2008 on the first page still current? 

 

2.  Do I use the P7 version of the firmware from the zip file (because the card is re-branded) or the latest 9211 firmware from LSI?  P19 seems to be the latest.

 

3.  I am concerned about getting the PAL error because I don't think the TS440 has a boot to EFI shell option.  What is the easiest solution?  Put the card into another motherboard to do the flash?

 

Any other advice would be appreciated.  It is my first time doing this.

 

I have a Lenovo ThinkServer TS440 that I tried to do this with, and ended up with the "Error: failed to initialize PAL".  I ended up putting the card in a Dell Optiplex 9010 where I was able to finish flashing it.

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