Default firmware for this guide is:
2118it.bin
Version 20.00.07.00
Release date: 11-FEB-16
WARNING: If you have an Integrated, Mini or Mini Mono Perc H310 do NOT try to crossflash with these steps.
So this guide will be the update to my first guide… without double checking everything I’m pretty sure it’s almost identical except for the link to the ZIP file. So I’m not sure why I retyped all of this instead of just updating the ZIP file in the old guide. Anyway…. the difference between the old and new ZIP file is the sas2flsh and sas2flash versions. The default sas2flsh.exe and sas2flash.efi in this new ZIP file are p5 which allows you to pretty much overwrite/downgrade any firmware. This will help mainly those who were getting stuck on the H200 cards. I’ve also included driver, firmware and sas2flash folders that contain a wide array of sometimes hard to find versions.
If you’re just looking for a list of commands that need to be executed then check the very bottom of this page.
Things you’ll need:
- Bootable USB (link). You can follow this post on using Rufus to create a quick FreeDOS bootable USB Drive.
- For those with newer UEFI motherboards you’ll need bootx64.efi (link) (alternate link).
- You’ll want the version: Precompiled x86_64 UEFI Shell v1 Binary.
- This should already be included in the LSI-9211i8i.zip I’ve provided in the next link.
- LSI-9211-8i.zip (link). The main firmware file in this ZIP is P20. This has been updated to support the latest version of FreeNAS. The ZIP also contains versions of the tools that will make this process a bit easier. The default sas2flash tools are P05 which allow downgrading and flashing of non-compatible firmware in many cases.
- Thanks to mobilenvidia and Bryan Vyhmeister (brycv.com) for providing/finding a lot of the files and information used here.
- Both of these guys have provided great guides on flashing IBM M1015 cards and other great information.
- If you have a Dell Perc H310 and your computer won’t boot then you’ll need to cover PCIe pins B5 and B6. You can cover them with a thin piece of electrical tape. Thanks to Andy_Steb from AVS for sharing this tip he found.
- Make sure you don’t cover the A pins on the other side.
- Make sure you don’t cover the A pins on the other side.
- Your card may have a sticker on it marked SAS Address. If it does then write this down so it’s easily accessible.
Moving on to the steps:
- First thing we need to do is prepare the USB drive.
- Once you’ve created the bootable USB drive in step 1 you want to copy the contents of LSI-9211-8i.zip onto the USB drive.
- The root of the USB drive should look like this:
- Next we’ll want to reboot and boot into FreeDOS/MS-DOS.
- With the bootable USB drive inserted (may work best in a USB2.0 port on the back of the computer) a reboot may boot directly into the USB drive. If not you will need to select the drive from a boot menu. This will be different for every motherboard but should be similar.
- In the below screen shot you can see an ASUS UEFI BIOS Utility screen. At this screen you can hit F8 and select a boot device. The USB drive shows up indented and labeled Patriot Memory. Yours will most likely be labeled by whatever type of drive you have.
- In the below screen shot you can see a GIGABYTE UEFI BIOS screen. This is presented on the Save & Exit tab. The drive also shows up indented here and labeled Patriot Memory PMAP.
- Clicking or Double-clicking on Patriot Memory should boot into the DOS environment as shown below.
- Next we can begin flashing the card.
- If your card doesn’t have a sticker with the SAS Address you should be able to follow these steps to obtain the address.
- If you have a Dell Perc H310 then follow these steps.
megacli.exe -AdpAllInfo -aAll -page 20
- Hit enter once or twice and you should scroll through screens that look like this:
- Write down the SAS Address.
- If you have a Dell Perc H200 then follow the below steps. (If you have a UEFI motherboard then see the steps below for UEFI motherboards)
- To save the SAS Address we’ll need to use sas2flash.
sas2flsh.exe -listall
- You should get a listing of all the cards installed.
- Use the number in the first column to get the SAS Address for the card.
sas2flsh.exe -c 0 -list
- This should dump all the information for the card including the SAS Address.
- Write down the SAS Address and continue to the next steps.
- Flash the card with the Dell 6gbps HBA Firmware.
- The steps for flashing the H310 and H200 will be the same.
megarec.exe -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
- If this command fails it should be safe to proceed to step 2.
megarec.exe -cleanflash 0
- Reboot the computer and boot back into the USB drive.
sas2flsh.exe -o -f 6GBPSAS.fw
If flashing a M1015 you can use the 2118p7.bin instead of the 6GBPSAS.FWs2fp19.exe -o -sasadd 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx
(replace this address with the one you wrote down in the first steps).- Reboot the computer and boot back into the USB drive.
- Flash the card with the LSI 9211-8i Firmware.
- The same steps will flash the card to a LSI 9211-8i.
sas2flsh.exe -o -f 2118it.bin
- It should ask you if you want to flash anyway. Type Y to proceed.
- Reboot the computer back into your OS. You may need to remove your USB drive if it was automatically booting.
- Alternatively you can use sas2flsh.exe to flash the 2118p7.bin and then use s2fp19.exe to flash the 2118it.bin. Depending on the revision of the card this method can provide cleaner output for the card details.
- If you’re running linux or BSD then you should be finished. If you’re running Windows 7/2008 R2 and possibly Windows 8.1 then you’ll want to update your drivers.
- Click this (link) to take you back to my previous guide on how to update the drivers.
UEFI Motherboards
- Now if you have a UEFI motherboard and received an error like this:
"ERROR: Failed to initialize PAL. Exiting program."
when trying to run sas2flsh then you’re going to have to run the flashing steps in an efi shell. All of the other instructions should work fine. When you reboot after runningmegarec -cleanflash 0
is when you’ll need to enter the efi shell. - As noted above for the H200 you will need to run sas2flash from the UEFI shell in order to save the SAS Address.
- The EFI boot shell should already be on the USB drive.
- After the
megarec -cleanflash 0
completes, instead of rebooting into the USB drive we’ll want to reboot into the UEFI shell.
- After the
- Using the same two UEFI BIOS configuration screens I’ll show you how to enter the UEFI shell.
- With the GIGABYTE board we will just select the UEFI USB option highlighted below.
- With the ASUS boards you will most likely need to disable secure boot first. This could pertain to other boards as well.
- For the board I was using this was under the Boot tab and named Secure Boot in the Advanced section of the utility.
- Open that option and select Other OS.
- Save those settings and reboot back into the UEFI BIOS utility.
- I had issues launching the UEFI shell from the below menu in the exit screen.
- You should be able to select Launch EFI Shell from filesystem device but that did not work for me.
- I was however able to select ASUS EZ Mode and then use F8 to select the boot device.
- Selecting UEFI: Patriot Memory this time.
- This should launch a shell that looks like this:
- From here you’ll need to select your USB drive.
- Type the following command to display the devices with a -b to pause on each full screen.
map -b
- As long as you have 1 USB drive inserted it will most likely be the first device that shows up labeled
fs0
.
- To select that device type:
fs0:
- Your
Shell>
prompt should change to afs0:\>
prompt.
- Now you can run your sas2flash command. Note that the efi executable is named sas2flash.efi instead of sas2flsh.exe.
- To save the SAS Address for the Perc H200 run the following commands:
sas2flash.efi -listall
- You should get a listing of all the cards installed.
- Use the number from the first column to get the SAS Address for the card.
sas2flash.efi -c 0 -list
- This should dump all the information for the card including the SAS Address.
- Write down the SAS Address and continue to the next steps.
sas2flash.efi -o -f 6GBPSAS.FW
If flashing a M1015 you can use the 2118p7.bin instead of the 6GBPSAS.FWsas2flash_p19.efi -o -sasadd 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx
(replace this address with the one you wrote down)- Reboot the computer and boot back into the UEFI shell.
- The same steps will flash the card to a LSI 9211-8i.
sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
- It should ask if you want to flash anyway. Type Y to proceed.
- Reboot the computer back into your OS. You may need to remove the USB drive.
- Alternatively you can use sas2flsh.exe to flash the 2118p7.bin and then use s2fp19.exe to flash the 2118it.bin. Depending on the revision of the card this method can provide cleaner output for the card details.
- If you’re running linux or BSD then you should be finished. If you’re running Windows 7/2008 R2 and possibly Windows 8.1 then you’ll want to update your drivers.
- Click this (link) to take you back to my previous guide on how to update the drivers.
- With the GIGABYTE board we will just select the UEFI USB option highlighted below.
Here is a quick summary of steps to reference:
megacli.exe -AdpAllInfo -aAll -page 20
Write down SAS address.megarec.exe -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
If this fails move on to next step.megarec.exe -cleanflash 0
Reboot.sas2flsh.exe -o -f 6GBPSAS.fw
Reboot.sas2flsh.exe -o -f 2118it.bin
- or sas2flsh.exe -0 -f 2118p7.bin, reboot, then s2fp19.exe -o -f 2118it.bin
s2fp19.exe -o -sasadd 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx
sas2flsh.exe -c 0 -list
Write down SAS address.megarec.exe -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
If this fails move on to next step.megarec.exe -cleanflash 0
Reboot.sas2flsh.exe -o -f 6GBPSAS.fw
Reboot.sas2flsh.exe -o -f 2118it.bin
- or sas2flsh.exe -o -f 2118p7.bin, reboot, then s2fp19.exe -o -f 2118it.bin
s2fp19.exe -o -sasadd 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Run the following commands in the DOS prompt:
megacli.exe -AdpAllInfo -aAll -page 20
Write down SAS address.megarec.exe -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
If this fails move on to next step.megarec.exe -cleanflash 0
- Reboot into UEFI shell and run the following commands:
sas2flash.efi -o -f 6GBPSAS.FW
Reboot and return to UEFI shell.sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
- or sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118p7.bin, reboot, then
sas2flash_p19.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
- or sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118p7.bin, reboot, then
sas2flash_p19.efi -o -sasadd 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Boot into UEFI shell:
sas2flash.efi -c 0 -list
Write down SAS address.
- Reboot into DOS prompt:
megarec.exe -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
If this fails move on to next step.megarec.exe -cleanflash 0
- Reboot into UEFI shell:
sas2flash.efi -o -f 6GBPSAS.FW
Reboot and return to UEFI shell.sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
- or sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118p7.bin, reboot, then
sas2flash_p19.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
- or sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118p7.bin, reboot, then
sas2flash_p19.efi -o -sasadd 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Please leave a comment if these instructions were helpful or if you found them to be too confusing. Thanks!
You can also reach me via PM on reddit. /u/techmattr
It seems P20 has released but not stable. It may be good to be included in the your mega LSI-9211-8i.zip firmware package
http://www.avagotech.com/products/server-storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9211-8i#downloads
Yeah P20 has been out for a while but I’ve seen nothing but horror stories about it on the FreeNAS and unRAID forums which is why I didn’t include it. I haven’t done enough testing with it on my own yet.
Has anybody flashed an H310 to 9211 with BIOS ? I’ve been able to do it with an H200, and I’ve been able to flash an H310 to a generic Dell 6GBSAS with BIOS, but I’m unable to flash to generic 9211 with BIOS (P7/P19?). I need the BIOS on some cards to boot from them, but any attempt to flash to 9211 with BIOS does not work (always leaves a card with no BIOS).
Okay. I’ve managed to do this without problems. Its ESSENTIAL that you use the matching versions of sas2flsh, 2118it.bin and mptsas2.rom. So, if you are flashing P7, you need to use the P7 sas2flsh, P7 2118it.bin and P7 mptsas2.rom. Ditto when you use newer versions, say P16 or P19. Always use the matching versions!
That may be the case for the BIOS… I haven’t tested with BIOS flashing enough to really comment with any certainty. I do know it doesn’t matter for the firmware though. I’ve flashed the newest firmwares with the oldest sas2flsh and the other way around multiple times. The only difference is the detail of output it generates.
BIOS might be a different story. Obviously if that is true then firmware + BIOS in a single command would be a different story as well. It’s rare someone would want BIOS with an HBA so not much feedback on that scenario.
Thanks for reporting back with your findings. I’ll try to do some more testing soon.
Hi Mattr,
Firstly thanks for your blog guide and especially for the youtube vid – all working great for a H310 I picked up pretty cheap from ebay.
Regarding P20 LSI F/W mentioned above I heard that the problems are more down to mismatch between f/w and driver. Since freenas 9.2 is based on bsd 9 it was best practice to use FW16, which aligned.
Now that Freenas 9.10 moved to BSD 10, I read that P20 F/W should be used… so I will try it and its what I flashed.
I noted that there is an updated Dell 6gbps SAS driver available now – A11 so I started with that one.
Lastly, I see you have a fan installed on that h310 in the photo on the blog. Do you think its needed? I’m loath to add fans if not needed (noise) and also hate removing/installing those tension heatsink mounts.
Yeah I know Windows users and unRAID users have had a lot of issues with P20 as well. The same thing happened when P19 was first release as well though. I’ll probably add it to the ZIP file though. If there was something majorly wrong with it LSI would have pulled it by now.
As far as the fan goes… I add fans to all my HBAs that aren’t in a proper server chassis. The little heatsinks on them are designed to work with the big 80+CFM fan row that exists in all server chassis. Without any air moving over these little chips they get really hot. I touched the stock heatsink after a couple hours of file copying and my finger blistered instantly… obviously way over spec.
That being said I know plenty of people (including some of my own cards in the past) that run perfectly fine for years in a cramp tower case with no airflow and I’ve honestly never heard of these cards failing due to heat. They are tough cards.
[quote]sas2flsh -0 -f 6GBPSAS.fw[/quote]
Typo above, it should be -o.
Good catch. Fixed and thanks!
I bookmarked your previous post and ordered 2 H310s to be flashed. When I got the cards I saw this new post came out. I followed your steps and it worked like a charm. Thank you for all the work!
Also I’m not sure if you hit the same problem, but when I had my freedos boot up, I got extended memory access issues when running megaXXX. I ended up downloading the himemx and load it in config.sys to be able to run those programs.
And FYI, I burned the freedos onto an old 400GB hard drive, instead of using a USB drive, and that also worked out.
Flash the BIOS for this adapter from P20_IT_FW_BIOS package -> You can use P20 sas2flash.efi already and the number after -c switch is the number of the card (zero in this case) respectively!
sas2flash.efi -c 0 -b mptsas2.rom
Flash the UEFI Boot Services Driver for this adapter from UEFI_BSD_P20.zip package.
sas2flash.efi -c 0 -b x64sas2.rom
If you wish.
Hi, I just flashed my h200 and now the server doesn’t see the raid card. What do you think is the issue? Sorry if this is a stupid question.
Thanks,
Jon
Do you have the card installed in a Dell server with a dedicated H200/H700 slot? Once flashed the card needs to be moved to a regular PCIe slot.
Yes, it is in a generic PCI-E slot.
I am getting a failed to validate Mfgpage2 error.
You flashed the 6GBPS fw first? https://techmattr.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/failed-to-validate-mfg-page-2/
Also are you using the P5 version of sas2flash?
Ok, no more error but still doesn’t show up on my r710. I am flashing the h200 on a separate computer if that makes any difference. I am 14 and still learning so please make it as simplistic as possible.
Thanks for the assistance and for your time,
Jon
Also, I believe I am on the p5 version of the firmware. I got it from your download link. I am using it for FreeBSD if that changes anything.
Thanks again,
Jon
Ok, I got it recognized but it is the p7 firmware, not the p20 and I used this guide. http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=1045376
Can I put the p20 firmware from your guide onto the drive I made from his guide?
Thanks,
Jon
Yes you can. From any OS, BIOS or EFI you just use the appropriate sas2flsh or sas2flash for the environment you’re in and do a sas2flash -o – f 2118it.bin
Ok, I now what I need to do now but don’t know how to do it. I need to put the bios on.
Download the firmware package from here: http://docs.avagotech.com/docs/12350530 and extract the mptsas2.rom from the sasbios_rel folder. Here is the command I used to flash the BIOS in Windows.
C:\Users\Matt\Downloads\LSI-9211-8i>sas2flash_p19_x64.exe -o -b .\Firmware\9211-8i_Package_P20_IR_IT_FW_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows\sasbios_rel\mptsas2.rom
On reboot you can go into the HBA BIOS and select a boot device.
How do I flash the bios on to the card? I need to boot from it.
I’m trying to create the usb (while my H310 comes) in another computer to test it the usb.
I create the USB with freedos.
I can start with it and type some comands like dir, etc…
The usb is ok.
When I copy the contents of the LSI-9211-8i zip to the usb root (like image) then I’m not able to start in DOS mode. It starts (I think) in EFI SHELL because I can type: fs0: or map -b, etc but I think I don’t have a UEFI Motherboard (it’s an old motherboard).
I’m doing something wrong?
Thankyou
Gus
You should be able to go into the BIOS and select a boot device. The USB drive should have two different labels with one identifying that its the UEFI interface.
I forgot to write down my SAS address are these specific to devices or can you fill it with anything?
the card has flashed fine and is functioning the only error im getting is that its SAS address is not defined.
It shouldn’t matter. Most of cards are just 0’s for the SAS address. The only time it would matter is if you have multiple cards installed. Then they would just need to be different.
I too, Tried to flash a dell perc h200 and now the motherboard/sas2flsh will not detect the card.
It happened after running “sas2flash -o -f 6GBPSAS.FW” in an efi shell, I had a feeling when It asked for confirmation Y/N but flashed it anyway. /facepalm
I have it running in an Asus motherboard, non server in a regular pci-e slot.
Any suggestions would be gladly appreciated.
You should be asked if you’re sure when applying the 6GBPSAS.FW as you’re flashing incorrect firmware. Did you reboot after flashing? If the card isn’t detected under sas2flash.efi then you should be able to run a cleanflash again via megarec.
Thanks for the help, Yes I did reboot. I was clearly impatient. I was able to issue a cleanflash which seemed to work but it still will not flash ‘2118it.bin or 2118p7.bin’ I tried both just to see. I get the infamous ‘Failed to validate MfgPage2’ error. Also during cleanflash I get 3 lines that say ‘Warning! IO Base address high. Currently not supported.’
Thanks again for your help, I was clearly to busy to be flashing a card and should have read the whole post. This is the first time I ever messed up so bad.
I think I got it now, after flashing both the ‘6GBPSAS.FW & 2118it.bin’ It prompted both times failed to reset adapter. Is the card supposed to flash green? I have not tried it in an OS yet but hopefully it works.
Hello, awesome guide ! Just have a question about the first steps :
megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
If this command fails it should be safe to proceed to step 2.
megarec -cleanflash 0
Reboot the computer and boot back into the USB drive.
sas2flsh -o -f 6GBPSAS.fw
sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx (replace this address with the one you wrote down in the first steps).
Is there any difference with this that i found in another guide :
To erase the firmware but not erase all the cards info completey eg it’s SAS address, Hardware ID etc) enter the command :
sas2flsh -o -e 6
sas2flsh -o -f 6GBPSAS.fw
If not the latter seems a bit faster 🙂
A lot of the cards won’t recognize sas2flash commands until they are wiped with cleanflash. I’ve also seen enough reports of bricked cards after using erase commands to not suggest using it.
OK thanks will use this method then. Just saw that Dell 6gbps HBA Firmware A11 firmware was available, should it be used instead of A10 ?
How do I flash the bios to the card as well? I need to boot from it. I am 14 so please make it detailed.
Thanks in advance,
Jon
Hi, how did you get a dell fw later than the a07 (fw2657A) on the h310 card? I tryed a several times to flash the card with a09 or a08 fw from dell but everytime they say there ist no suitable controller found. I have a normal h310 pcix controllercard with 2 minisas ports.
Had flashed the card with different FW`s with it / ir mode everything fine but didn`t get any later dell fw than the FW2657A to work on my controller.
My Problem ist I like to have a hw based raid, and had big trouble with the controller with fw2657a on win7 32bit and MSM as the managment Software. I get a lot of bluescreens in different situations (if the controller is doing any task like consistency check or a reduild or an init.. I cant boot into windows = bluescreen at loginscreen; if the controller is still working all is fine a can also use msm but if I want to start one of the tasks in msm I get a bluecscreen again). With LSI ir FW all is working fine expcect I dont get any keybord to work in lsi controllerbios but that doesn`t matter because all the managment option from msm working fine. But there is no powercontroll option after I change the FW to lsi I think there are a several option I dont can mange with LSI fw and MSM the most important for me are the Power options.
So my idea was to go back to stock Dell FW and try other(newer) Dell FW versions but didnt get any of them to work…. At the Dell Homepage I only find the A09 here I read something from a13 where do I can download this?
What do I wrong some ideas for me?
PS: thanks for the great work you do with your posts here awesome!!!!
If your goal is to get a simple RAID controller to work with power control options then you need to use the revert back to H310 instruction with the A04 firmware. LSI does not support power control options and neither does Dell anymore after the A04 firmware I believe. I’m not sure exactly which version they dumped those options but I know they don’t exist in the newer firmware revisions.
Thanks a lot for your reply. Which one is the newest org. dell ir fw version I can use on the perc h310? I didn`t find any newer than the one you provided in the .zip file (think it is the same version which you mentioned in the your revert back post).
I think think spin down options in the Dell fw are really important and they are working really good. But the Dell fw will not working fine with the MegaRaid Storage Manager Software (I get a lot of bluescreens like I told in my other comment if the controller is doing any task) . Is there any other suitable managment software out there which anybody can recommend?
How did you get: power managment, hdd surveilance with notification, RAID managing, rebuilding, etc to work? Or is it overall the better idea to use a Softwareraid config and look for the software to do the powermanagment and all the other tasks?
We are talking about a smal homeserver configuration, mostly mediaserver dlna, plex (realtime conversion), etc. CPU is not so strong but server didn`t have to do strong tasks. Win7 32bit; lsi MSM; dell perc h310 with ir fw pcix8 target connected to: 2x4tb hgst; 2x1TB WD;
Hi,
now I started a new way to get to my goal. I try to fix the BSoD errors which I get with latest DellFW (latest working with APM etc) in combination with MSM on Win7 32bit. I had a lot of different BSOD`s so i dont remind every error it was a long way, but after a several driver replacements, bios updates, hw changes (get rid of an old pci promise sata controller) I have now a working system with all the benefits I wish from my sas controller. After this journey I`m now happy about a working system, but I think I will give the softwareraid solution + lsi it fw another try in next wintertime.
Thnx for the work an your help
Hi all – just flashed my H200 for IT mode and all is well. I have an H200, now 9211-8i, in a Dell R510 which has 12 bays in front. FreeNAS sees 3 disks I have inserted. However, none of the drive lights are on (green or otherwise). Is that because I am lacking the BIOS for the card? I’d like to have drive status lights on the front of the server for obvious reasons.
I’m having trouble getting the “megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin” and “megarec -cleanflash 0” to work with my perc H310. Both commands seem to lockup the system.
I get the line “Copyright (C) Supernar Systems, Ltd. 1996-2005” and a blinking cursor blow it after trying both of the commands stated above. The system remains unresponsive until I reboot. The adapter and the system performs the same after each reboot, and I’ve used various
LSI-9211-8i.zip IT mode flash packages… and all of them produce the same results.
I’m using the perc H310 adapter in a PCI-e x16 slot on my Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2P (ver.3.0) motherboard. My system boots normally and shows the PowerEdge Bios boot screen as expected. The first command “megacli.exe -AdpAllInfo -aAll -page 20” that I sent from the dos prompt showed the adapter’s information as expected.
It’s adapter #0
Product Name: PERC H310 Adapter
Serial No: 37XXXXX
FW Package Build: 20.10.2-0002
Mfg. Data
—————–
Mfg. Date: 07/12/13
Rework Date: 07/12/13
Revision No: A00
Battery FRU: N/A
Image Versions in Flash:
—————————————-
Bios Version: 4.29.00_4.12.05.00_0x05110000
Preboot CLI Version: 03.02-015:#%00008
Ctrl-R Version: 3.00-0020
NVDATA Version: 3.09.03-0038
FW Version: 2.120.14-1504
Boot Block Version: 2.02.00.00-0001
Pending Images in Flash
—————————————
None
..
…
….
HW Configuration:
————————————–
SAS Address: 5b8cXXXXXXXXXXXX
BBU: Absent
..
…
…..
If you need any other information to assist, please advise.
Thank you for your help!
Are you able to try in a different machine or even a different PCIe slot?
I actually tried it in an old Compaq machine, and it also failed. After returning the card thinking it was defective, I ended up getting the same results with the new card.
I figured I could upgrade my mobo and try a different brand mobo to hopefully get better results. I purchased an ASUS matx mobo (non-UEFI) and finally got success on the first try! It was worth the $35 spent on the new mobo! I would have given up on the perc H310 crossflash if the ASUS mobo would have failed like the others. Thankfully I’m having much better results!
On another note, it seems I can flash the 6GBPSAS.FW, but I get the “ERROR: Cannot flash IT Firmware over IR Firmware!” message when I run the “s2fp19.exe -o -f 2118it.bin” command.
Do you have any advice?
use the following instead:
sas2flsh.exe -o -f 2118p7.bin
reboot
s2fp19.exe -o -f 2118it.bin
Your suggested sequence of commands worked flawlessly!
Thanks for all the help mattr!
maybe someone will helps.
bought H200 on aliexpress and two days trying to flash it to IT firmware.
steps you provide didnt helps me because every time i tried to load 6GBPSAS i have “Firmware download failed”.
so my solution was go to /firmware/perch200V3/ and flash it. (without any error) with command sas2flsh -f H200A.fw
next was command “flash” this totally unbricks my h200.
after that sas2flsh -o -e 6 in same directory to clean all.
next go to ../6GBPSAS V2(only this was flashed withs no error)
and flashed it with only command sas2flsh -f 6GBPSAS.fw sucessfully.
and finally go to root of the flash drive and flash 2118it
here i have an error and rebooted with NMI error(hP microserver gen8).
got my card out of server and put it to my very old trash-NAS(asus a8n-sli deluxe(pci-e v1) it have sucessfully booted to the same flash-drive and final command was
sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.fw
after that cards becomes to work in IT firmware.
I have H200 and get the same “Firmware download failed” So im trying to follow your post.
I have download the LSI-9211-8i.zip.
You are talking about /firmware/perch200V3/ and ../6GBPSAS V2, but this directories does not exist.
These directories are listed. Which one is perch200v3 and 6GBPSASv2?
PercH200_07.01.11.00_A00
PercH200_07.01.24.00_A01
PercH200_07.01.33.00_A03
PercH200_07.02.42.00_A04
PercH200_07.03.05.00_A08
PercH200_07.03.06.00_A09
6GbpsSASHBA_07.01.24.00_A01
6GbpsSASHBA_07.01.33.00_A03
6GbpsSASHBA_07.02.42.00_A04
6GbpsSASHBA_07.03.05.00_A08
6GbpsSASHBA_07.03.05.00_A09
6GbpsSASHBA_07.03.06.00_A10
Thank you for any help
The 6GBPSAS.FW used in the steps is in the root of the zip file. Any one of the firmwares found on the USB are compatible with the H200 though.
Your instructions worked like a charm. I had to repeat a few of the flashing steps when certain registers or reset variables would not change. Simply a matter of rebooting the server (warm boot) and flashing over gain if the double flash without rebooting would not work.
In my Dell r510 I had to reseat the H200 card in the original storage slot, and that allowed the H200 LSI IT card to now be seen by BIOS and FreeNAS. Like many Dell servers the cables are not long enough to change card slots.
After flashing he H200 all the way to IT mode, I recommend cold booting. If hat does not work, reseating the card worked for me.
Thanks again!!
Hey,
I’ve tried following the H200 UEFI steps but now the card shows no info:
sas2flash.efi -listall
SAS2008(??) ERROR: Failed to Upload Image
In DOS I can run:
megarec.exe -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
megarec.exe -cleanflash 0
But when I try to flash:
sas2flash.efi -o -f 6GBPSAS.FW
Failed to Validate Mfg Page 2
(after cleanflash – see above)
so now I’m stuck
UPDATE: the only command I was successfully able to run was:
sas2flash_p19.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
So I rebooted and tried to start again… same problem
After you run a cleanflash try
sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118p7.bin
thensas2flash_p19.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
Hi Guys. Does this procedure works with the H330? And after flash the IT firmware, is it possible back to the Dell firmware?
No it won’t work for the H330. You would have to use sas3flash for that. The process should be very similar though. There may be a jumper you have to flip to put the card in flash mode.
Thanks mattr for the directions. I followed the H310 steps and flashed it to LSI. I did not have any of the steps fail (including the megarec.exe -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin). Windows calls its Dell 6gbps SAS HBA like u mentioned. The driver provider is LSI, date 3/28/2016 version 2.079.80 called lsi_sas2i.sys. Your previous site said look under LSImpt_SAS2_P16. There is no such folder in the current version of the zipped file. There is a folder called drivers, and under it i see under 9211.8i, 4 folders 7, 8.1, 2008r2 and 2120r2. There is no windows 10 (and in fact the avago site also shows win7, win8 and 8.1/2012 r2 only.). If i ask it to chose the 8.1 folder, windows informs me that it has the most recent driver! Any ideas?
Now as a result of that or otherwise, i cant see a drive that i connected to it using the SAS connector that came with it. Am not sure if it is a driver issue or if the cable is faulty. Unfortunately i dont have a spare sff8087 to sata cable and this cable that came with perc h310 has two sas connectors that fit fine, the power cable connected to a power socket that i was using before.
Were the drives detected prior to flashing firmware? Different firmware or drivers wouldn’t change whether a drive is detected or not unless you’re getting a ton of adapter resets in Event Viewer. You can try installing the Drivers\9211-8i\Windows2012R2\P20x64 drivers but the default Windows 10 drivers should be fine. Typically when a drive isn’t detected it’s either because the drive itself isn’t compatible or it’s a bad/wrong cable.
Ok, thank you for the suggestion. Sadly i did not test connection to drives before flashing as my plan was to buy it only to flash to LSI (will do next time). The cable i used came with the card (2 port SAS cable). Can i use the perc h310 sas cable for a sata drive (HGST ultrastar .5 Tb) or is a forward breakout mini 8087 to 4 sata cable needed? If so, il order some of the latter. Thank you for your help.
Follow up. I tested the same card with same sas cable on my 2012 r2 server and it autodetected a driver from 2013 and senses the drive 🙂 . So i believe all is good. May be it was just a win 10 issue or an issue with dell t5600 where i flashed and tested the card and drive.
FYI, in your previous directions for driver update, u had indicated that the driver should say LSI StorPort, mine doesnt say that even after updating with 2012r2 p20x64 folder version. It just says Dell 6Gbps SAS HBA with driver from 2/19/2015, driver 2.0.76.0. When i choose “let me pick drivers from computer”, the only other option is the LSI Adapter, SAS 2008 falcon. I dont see a stor port option.
Thank u again
Hello!
First of all thanks for this guide, I’ve used it on a PERC H310 I managed to get pretty cheap off of ebay for my home server. I’ve done the flashing on an ASRock Z87M Pro 4 motherboard, from the EFI shell. The server is running up to date Debian 8.6 and everything seems to be fine, the card is recognized and connected HDDs are recognized as well. Performance seems to be fine too.
During the flash process however I’ve encountered some errors. After the firmware download and verification, when sas2flash attempts to reset the card it failed to do so and says it has abandoned any further steps in the process. This happened both when flashing 6GBPSAS.FW and 2118it.bin, but since the actual firmware download was successful in both cases I decided to try the card anyway, as I’ve already mentioned it seems to work fine.
Debian loads the mpt2sas driver and it’s identified as “Serial Attached SCSI controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS2008 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 [Falcon] (rev 03)”. Does this sound right? Is there any reason I should worry about those errors, seeing how the card works and does what I want it to do? I’d love to know for sure before adding any drives on the card to my existing RAID and possibly risking data loss.
Thanks!
A reboot obviously resets the card. So the failed reset isn’t really a big concern.
Hello! Thank you very much for the guide.
I have a HP DL 160 G6 with the Dell H200 SAS card, I have followed all your instructions but now when I boot my server the SAS card doesn’t recognise my hard drives ad shows this error:
6Gbps SAS Controller
MPT2BIOS-7.11.10.00 (2011.06.02)
Copyright….
ERROR: Preferred boot device is missing, reconfiguration is suggested!
Press any key to continue…
Please can you tell me how to fix that? Thank you very very much in advance.
After I pressed a key appears this message:
MPT boot ROM, no supported device found
I have tried to enter the configuration Utility with ctrl C and it seems the card doesn’t recognise any HDD.
How do I go about flashing a h310 to LSI IR firmware as I want raid 1 and Dell drivers & firmware are crap and cause my T20 to bluescreen.
You would follow the same steps but use the IR firmware instead.
Yeah I finally figured it out and took the plunge the other night. Successfully managed to flash it to IR firmware the other night and am pleased to report that the card now seems to stable running LSI IR firmware & drivers. Shame Dell cant make their own branded cards stable with their own firmware & drivers in their own server. Many thanks for your guide.
The Dell have a lot of additional features that the LSI cards don’t. So there is more to go wrong. When those cards are in the proper OEM server with all the right firmware/driver combinations they run as smooth as you’d expect enterprise grade hardware to run. When you change the OS around or update to possibly unsupported drivers they start to get buggy pretty quick.
Flashing to the LSI firmware basically disables all the additional features of the Dell cards and turns it into a workhorse that just… works. Glad you got it working though and hope you got something out of the guide!
I got to sas2flash.efi -o -f 6GBPSAS.FW but it failed stating Adapter Reset Failed.
I tried it again with no luck. Is there anything I can do to fix this?
Did the flash and validate complete successfully? If so the reset doesn’t really matter. Just reboot and that will obviously reset the adapter. Just make sure the actual flash steps are complete before rebooting.
Hi,
Your link for LSI-9211-8i.zip is broken, would you know where else to get the zip??.
Many Thanks!!!.
PJ.
Looks like it’s working for me. http://www.mediafire.com/file/6mtie10d9ud6675/LSI-9211-8i.zip
And now i’m at a different PC it works for me too.. sorry for the needless trouble and thanks for the concise tutorial!!
Phillip.
Hi mattr!
“WARNING: If you have an Integrated, Mini or Mini Mono Perc H310 do NOT try to crossflash with these steps.”
How can I recognize each of them and buy correct one?
Is this warning applies to H200 model too?
Are both of these cards have got the same wto connectors for cables (SSF-8087)?
I just want to replace PERC 6/i to H200 (or H310) to get JBOD mode in my Dell R710.
Thanks for any tips 🙂
If you’re buying a card on eBay it should state whether it’s an integrated card or not. Typically the H300 and H200 cards you see with a PCIe connector are the ones you want. The integrated mini cards are smaller and more square.
@mattr, I just want to say thank you! Your tutorial is absolutely well written, there’s nothing may happen wrong 🙂 Just crossflashed two Dell H200 cards from Dell’ish P15-IR firmware to LSI (Avago) P20-IT with no problems at all!
Thanks again!
Marek
Here’s an example of the Mini card you DO NOT want to buy: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-K09CJ-H310-PERC-6Gb-s-Mini-Mono-RAID-Controller-R420-R620-Refurbished-/252604379507?hash=item3ad064f173:g:mpgAAOSwImRYD5x0
Thank you very much for quick answer!
I just wanted to say thank you for the guide (and zipped up files!) and add a note or two.
I flashed a PERC h200 (047MCV) with all steps reporting success using a Dell Optiplex 780. However, for some reason, in my Dell R710, no drives were being reported. Aftertrying several other fxes, at the suggestion of a reddit user (thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/5jmg69/) I re-flashed and stopped after the dell 6gbps HBA firmware and SAS address assignment. Worked just fine and passed though JBOD for ZFS.
Just for kicks I finished the second cross flash process with the LSI 2118it.bin and it worked! So, I guess the key was to repeat the full cross flash process, although it would appear the process may be stopped after the dell firmware and SAS address assignment.
So I guess note 1 is: Even if all steps report success, a full reflash process may help with some types of issues.
Note 2: The flashed h200 does not show during POST on my R710, with either the Dell 6GBPSAS.fw or LSI 2118it.bin firmwares. This may be normal, but it was new to me, so just in case another newbie didn’t realize…they ya go.
thank you, again!
A afterthought:
If i am able to start the cross flash process on my PERC h200 and stop after the dell 6gbps HBA firmware and SAS address assignment and it works just fine and passes though my drives as JBOD for ZFS, what is the benefit to completing the process with application of the LSI 2118it.bin firmware?
thanks!
Basically the LSI IT firmware is more stable, better performance and wider range of compatibility.
I’ve flashed a Dell H310 to the linked P20 IT firmware using the steps provided in this guide (no BIOS). I did this on a Windows 2016 Server and when I check Device Manager my card is identified as a Dell 6Gbps SAS HBA. In Megaraid Storage Manager the card shows up as a SAS9211-8i.
The default driver selected by Windows 2016 is an LSI driver from 3/28/2016, V2.0.79.80. However, when I try to update the driver to the LSI StorPort driver it tells me I have the most recent driver.
For those on Server 2016, are we ok with the default driver or should we also be looking to update the driver?
I’m having trouble getting the flash to work properly.
megarec.exe -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin – Succeeds
megarec.exe -cleanflash 0 – fails at 40-50% completion
I managed to get it to flash the 2118it.bin directly once without intermediate steps but I think it was glitchy and my retry isn’t going so well.
I would try on another PC.
That isn’t possible because the card is a mezzanine model.
Those can’t be cross flashed. Check the warning at the beginning of the post.
The warning at the beginning wasn’t very clear. I thought it only referred to the H310 models.
Also I have heard of people successfully crossflashing the H200 mezzanine model.
To tell the truth, I managed to flash the 2118it firmware but I had to use sas2flash to erase the flash instead of megarec. However, it wasn’t without some issues and for some reason I can’t flash back to Dell fw.
Ive started a unraid build, was really bricking it about flashing the perc310 card but the this guide and your you tube vid on flashing the card made it painless.
Cant thank you enough for going through the trouble and keeping this guide updated.
Hi I am stuck on the megrec.exe step neither command completes.
I am running this on a poweredge r510 with freedos. megarec launches but never finishes. I waited up to 20 minutes with no results. How long should it take?
Are you able to try in a different PC?
I’m trying to flash a Dell H200 from UEFI. For some reason the P5 and P7 sas2flash.efi just hangs on my system regardless of which command I run (listall, list controller details, erase, flash, etc). When I invoke it, it simply displays a banner:
*******************************************
LSI Corporation SAS2Flash Utility
Version 5.00.00.00 (2010.02.10)
Copyright (c) 2009 LSI Corporation. All Rights Reserved
*******************************************
Followed by a static cursor (_) that isn’t blinking. It hangs until I reboot. Can’t kill it with ctrl-c. I tried multiple downloads direct from Broadcom and the attached zip on this post. I was able to erase the firmware and bios using the P20 sas2flash and flash 6GBPSAS.FW. However, at this point I’m not able to flash the LSI P7 IT firmware since I get the “cannot flash it firmware over ir firmware” when using newer versions of sas2flash.efi that don’t hang. Are there any ways around having to use the P7 version of sas2flash or below?
No the downgrade functionality has been stripped from newer versions of sas2flash and they only exist in recovery tools that aren’t publicly released. Are you trying to flash in a Dell R710 or 510 series? I get a lot of reports from people saying they have similar hangs on those systems.
No, the system is a Supermicro X10DRI. I’ll have to see whether I can get the older versions working on a different system.
hi,
thanks for the guide, Mattr.
I am having problems with my H200 and Gen8 Microserver. I am doing my flash in BIOS. I did:
sas2flsh.exe -c 0 -list // got my SAS address
megarec.exe -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin // I am not sure what is the output that tells me if this failed, there were fails in the middle but at the end there was success. I did procceed however.
megarec.exe -cleanflash 0
sas2flsh.exe -o -f 6GBPSAS.fw // here is where it fails. Firmware detected as compatibile and with Valid checksum, MfgPage2 also OK, valid NVDATA, but i get ERROR: Failed to upload imwage! Firmware image validation failed!
when I try to do sas2flash -o -f 2118p7.bin (then I should do sas2flash_p19 -o -f 2118it.bin_
it also fails.
Any hints?
How it looks like:
I just tried flashing my H200 and now I’m getting this same message.
Did you ever get this figured out?
It is either Microserver Gen8 or MSDOS that did not allow me to flash. On X9SCL supermicro board and EFI shell, it worked from the moment it was interrupted on Microserver w/ DOS environment.
Just an update; I was able to flash it with a Supermicro X8SAI-F using sas2flsh. For some reason the older UEFI versions of the tool don’t get along with the X10DRI.
Hi Matt
Thanks so much for the guide. Just cross flashed two H310s without issue.
Just a quick question – I had these cards connected by SFF 8087 cables to the backplanes on my case. However I was not seeing any physical drives even under the old Dell BIOS. Or under W10. I thought maybe when I cross-flashed them it would upgrade the firmware and they’d see the WD 4TB NAS drives. No such luck.
Further tests using the dual SATA cable that came with the card show that the drives are indeed recognised when connected to that cable. Can I safely assume the cables are no good? Its a brand new case and the backplanes connected to the MB controller are working fine.
Or does using he SFF8087 to SFF8087 require a different driver. Using driver 20 from the supplied zip file under windows there is no driver option for -STORPORT.
thanks
It’s possible the cables are bad. I’m surprised how often we see bad cables. If they are a reputable brand then it’s unlikely they are bad. Typically the bad cables we see are the cheap eBay Chinese ones.
Yeah – it was bad cables of eBay. I swapped one out for a known good cable and it worked. If I had to guess they must be missing the sidebands – which are maybe essential for backplane connection. All 4 canles don’t work.
Hi, Maybe a small missing step for the h200 EFI example. cd into EFI after booting the efi shell. Screenshots seem to indicate this.
/A
HOW ABOUT REFLASH H330 TO LSI?
I don’t have one to test with.
This article was outstanding. Thank you.
—A happy FreeNAS user with an H310 in LSI IT mode 🙂
I had some problems with freedos when getting to the step to erase the cards.
6004 error to be exact.
Fix was to download the himemx, put it in the source directory and add the line
device=c:\himemx.exe
At the end of config.sys which is a hidden file there. To edit it, one needs to execute (with win+r) k:\config.sys (assuming your drive is k) which opens the file dialog in windows and there just choose your favorite editor.
I’m having trouble from dos boot USB. When I try to run the megacli.exe command it gives me a warning no extended memory has been allocated and not enough memory. Did I make the USB boot disk incorrectly? I used Rufus and followed the directions given.
Check out Chris’s post here: https://techmattr.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/updated-sas-hba-crossflashing-or-flashing-to-it-mode-dell-perc-h200-and-h310/comment-page-1/#comment-354
I was getting it too
“DOS/32A fatal (4003): not enough extended memory to load application exec “C:\MEGACLI.EXE”
To get around this issue, run megacli.exe as an argument to dos32a.exe which is also part of the LSI-9211-8i.zip archive. So the command to get the SAS Address is:
> DOS32A.EXE MEGACLI.EXE -AdpAllInfo -aAll -page 20
Many thanks for this guide. Overall well written and very helpful.
Everything is probably fine but I wanted to ask about a mistake I made in one of the commands. When writing the SAS address, I used ‘sas2flash.efi’ instead of ‘sas2flash
_p19.efi’. It was processed successfully, just making sure this isn’t serious.
Also, when I did this, it was after I flashed the Dell 6GBPSAS f/w and before flasing to a 9211-8i since I was still following the order of commands under the DOS instructions. This probably doesn’t matter either?
Thanks again.
Thank you for the great info,
I have installed 3 Dell Perc on my ASUS z97 Motherboard (thank god i ve found the tip to put tape on pins 5 and 6 : ), and use them in non raid mode under Windows 10. (using the amazing DrivePool Program).
i think i wont have any benefits to flash to LSI (since i dont use raid) but i would like to update them to the latest Dell H310 firmware (20.03).
downloaded the files from the Dell site fw6099A (16/2/2016)
Booted from rufus usb in dos, when i tried to run update.bat it says no controllers found.
Any ideas?
Thank you 🙂