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How-to Flash Dell Perc H310 with IT Firmware To Change Queue Depth from 25 to 600 | ESX Virtualization

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Original source (www.vladan.fr)
Tags: hardware storage hacking dell raid lsi queue-depth www.vladan.fr
Clipped on: 2018-11-25

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Image (Asset 1/42) alt=

Here are the steps I used.

01. Prepare an USB drive you can boot into DOS (use Rufus, easy one)

Image (Asset 2/42) alt= megarec -cleanflash 0

Image (Asset 3/42) alt= megarec -cleanflash 0

I got an error message saying that “Firmware Host Boot Unsuccessful” and then the program has exited when I attempted to upgrade the firmware….

I thought, what next?

Then after erasing and trying different things again I have done this via UEFI and brought here another error:

fs0:> sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.BIN
LSI Corporation SAS2 Flash Utility
Version 19.00.00.00 (2014.03.17)
<copyright>

Advanced Mode SetAdapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2008(B2)Executing Operation: Flash Firmware Image:

Firmware Image has a Valid Checksum.
Firmware Version 19.00.00.00
Firmware Image compatible with Controller.Valid NVDATA Image found.
NVDATA Version 11.00.00.00
Checking for compatible NVData image…NVData Device ID and Chip Revision match verified.
Valid Initialisation Image verified.
Valid Bootloader Image verified.Chip is in RESET state. Attempting Host Boot…
Firmware Host Boot Successful.Mfg Page 2 Mismatch Detected.
Writing Current Mfg Page 2 Settings to NVRAM.
Failed to Validate Mfg Page 2!​

Due to error remaining commands will not be executed.
Unable to Process Commands.
Existing SAS2Flash.​

 

Image (Asset 4/42) alt= megarec -cleanflash 0

2. reboot

3. boot to efi and change to your USB via

fs0:

4. execute this command to flash the firmware and bios (this is the IT firmware I originally used in this post)

sas2flash.efi -o -f 6gbpsas.fw -b mptsas2.rom

5. reboot

6. repeat step 3 and flash the latest (version 20) IR firmware and bios

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

You’re done. The IR firmware has also queue depth 600 so in case you want to use it with VSAN it’s good candidate. It’s IR firmware however…

The boot time is back to normal and I have disabled the card via ctrl+c at bios prompt as I’m not booting on any of those disks.

Image (Asset 5/42) alt=0

| Filed Under: Home Lab, How To —60 Comments

Image (Asset 6/42) alt= I guess this is due to the SAS card not detected as it does not have any config on this?

Do you have any suggestion on fixing this?

Thanks,

RCK

  • Image (Asset 7/42) alt= After rebooting the server it stalled on an invalid controller in the internal storage slot and just said “System halted” and never completed POST.

    I’ve had to RMA the controller to get access to my disks again..

    • Image (Asset 8/42) alt= It is situated in my Dell Poweredge r720xd.

      I’ve read a post above here about it, that a guys bricked it. So i think i did the same thing…

      I started to flash and now i ran into a problem, which i can not bypass, and i hope some more experienced flashers here can help me out.

      I first booted into Freedos and started the flash proces as discribed:
      megacli -AdpAllInfo -aAll -page 20 (I did this and i have the adress writen down)
      megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin (This command failed as discribed)
      megarec -cleanflash 0 (This worked out and the card was cleared)
      Reboot the system
      sas2flsh -o -f 6GBPSAS.FW (this is where the problems started)
      At point 5 i got an error message that the card was not recognised. I thought it would be a good idea to reboot again. Maybe something went wrong. Now when i try to boot i get the following message:

      “Invalid PCIe card found in the Internal Storage slot!”
      “System halted!”
      http://imgur.com/EinmZJP

      This message appeard before the boot options, so i am not able to boot from the usb disk again, wich makes is hard to flash :p. When i take the raid controller out, i am able to boot into the bios and/usb drive again, but i am unable to solve the flash issue because the card is out…

      So it feels like i’m kinda stuck with a bricked raid controller… :/

      Any ideas how to solve this? I read something about placing it in another slot, but because it’s not a default card, i am unable to place it into another slot.

      I hope you guys can help me and i don’t need to buy a new controller. And if i do buy a new one i’m affraid to end up with the same situation…

    • Image (Asset 9/42) alt= I ended up using DOS for everything.

  • Image (Asset 10/42) alt= I tried to flash my new H310 with IT firmware using this tutorial, but i failed.

    “megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin” and “megarec -cleanflash 0” run successfully.

    (I have to mention, that I had to reboot the server after “writesbr”. Without reboot “cleanflash” failed with this error message “Flash is not programmable”)

    After reboot “sas2flsh -o -f 6gbpsas.fw” failed with error message “Firmware Download Failed!”.

    I tried to flash the card in a HP DL380G7 and in a HP DL380G5 without success.

    Do you have any suggestion what is wrong here?

    Thank you!

    • Image (Asset 11/42) alt= Thanks anyway Image (Asset 12/42) alt= it was by accident?

  • Image (Asset 13/42) alt= http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.615
    The zip download (http://www45.zippyshare.com/v/51016808/file.html) has everything you need to get to the P16 version of the firmware and from there I just went and grabbed the P20 version from the Avago website (http://www.avagotech.com/products/server-storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9211-8i#downloads) and grabbed the latest firmware.
    There are batch files in the zip download that automate the process, but if you edit the batch files, you can see exactly what is happening and it really does work.

    Reply