Flashing an LSI 9211-8i RAID Card to IT Mode for ZFS/Software RAID (Tutorial)

[alpenwasser]

sas2flash.efi -listall on my new PFsense box ends with "no lsi card detected" something like that, its a new system I just built and it was hopeful because I was able to see my files in the efi shell but the system does not detect the card.... if there is something I can do to make the card show up I think that system has promise.  I have tried everything and searched for days online trying to find another way, I basically have no other hardware left to try with. Having this brand new freenas server built and loaded with drives but no HBA card is driving me nuts, this is my first dedicated server.

Hm, that is rather curious. And yes, very infuriating indeed.

What motherboard are you using in your pfsense box?

Also, on the supermicro board, have you tried printing the working directory (the pwd

thing)?

[Cheatdeath]

Hm, that is rather curious. And yes, very infuriating indeed.

What motherboard are you using in your pfsense box?

Also, on the supermicro board, have you tried printing the working directory (the pwd

thing)?

Well I tried something that I read should not work. I flashed the bios and firmware using LSI Megaraid Software on a windows 7 machine and it worked perfectly and instantly. I cant figure out why nobody really talks about this method, its literally pissing me off now.

[alpenwasser]

Well I tried something that I read should not work. I flashed the bios and firmware using LSI Megaraid Software on a windows 7 machine and it worked perfectly and instantly. I cant figure out why nobody really talks about this method, its literally pissing me off now.

Haha, glad to see you got it working!

I honestly had not actually come across that method before, only the one via a DOS

boot drive, and that didn't work for me. You wouldn't happen to be able to give some

info on what you've done so that others could follow your steps as well if they find

other methods to be uncooperative? I'd then add a note and a link to your post to the

OP so that others can easily find the info. Would be great!

[Cheatdeath]

Haha, glad to see you got it working!

I honestly had not actually come across that method before, only the one via a DOS

boot drive, and that didn't work for me. You wouldn't happen to be able to give some

info on what you've done so that others could follow your steps as well if they find

other methods to be uncooperative? I'd then add a note and a link to your post to the

OP so that others can easily find the info. Would be great!

 

Update: 6-18-15 Its possible this method will not work if your card is already updated past P16 Firmware updates. The card I bought on ebay came with P7 on it.

 

P16 is the recommended firmware to use with FreeNAS. 

 

These are the steps I used to flash P16 IT Firmware and update the bios on a LSI 9211-8i.

 

 

First step is to download and install the latest MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM) (Click to download MSM for Windows 32 & 64 Bit)

 

Next is to obtain your choice of firmware and bios available here  

 

Once in MSM there is a place to click that says update firmware or something of that nature you really cant miss it. It will open a window that gives options of updating the bios and firmware and some other stuff. You will point the update to your choice of files for the update. I happened to use P16 IT firmware for use with freenas the file name was 2118it.bin

 

I hit ok or similar, it started the process right up and completed in a few mins.

 

Repeat for bios, choose update bios and select your bios file. Mine was named mptsas2.rom

 

Computer specs used for the flash:

 

Windows 7 Pro

 

Gigabyte Z77 UD5H -  I-5 3570k

LSI 9211-8i inserted in the top x16 pci-x3.0 slot

 

 

I really hope this helps someone out lol, this shit literally can drive you nuts.

 

screw that pal error and efi shells imo....

[TommyB]

Sorry to revive !

 

Just wanted to say thanks :-)

 

I used this guide and set aside the tools I needed for this:

https://bruneeto.stackstorage.com/index.php/s/ME3m3T68r4xvWM4

 

Set your bios to UEFI and enter four new entries.

I used a Dell Optiplex 3020 for this and ended up using the Shell_Fullx64.efi shell for this one.
My usb was fs0 not ft0 

Al other things aside, easy peasy !

 

Thanks again for the info !

 

[dkkauffmanjr]

I need help I'm using an evga z170 mobo. I've tried using uefi but it will quickly flash blue screen then go back to the bios screen. I've tried Windows as well as dos and still can't flash my 9211 to it mode. 

[montemonte]

Would all this work with an old bios at an "P5VD2-VM" motherboard?

Or would this work on a "HP Z420" Workstation?

Thanks, Monte

[freddyflintstone]

In another post  https://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/  they point out that you can Option the ROM.

What exactly does the ROM do if I exclude it?

How is this different from Including it?

Thanks

 

[dash9it]

I am sorry if this is already asked, what is the purpose of IT mode?

 

Also what do you mean by software RAID? Just that FreeNAS is an OS using the filesystem ZFS where you create a RAID5 or RAIDz, etc?

[TheSaint]

Thanks for the guide @alpenwasser , your name just sounds as refreshing as your user guide!  

 

Big props for trying to make a complex task easier, especially for a first-time crossflash newbie, and a newbie to server-grade hardware in general.

 

I just bought an IBM M1015 that I would like to crossflash to LSI IT mode. My end game is to use it as a HBA with my Dell R510, to run a 12 bay FreeNAS 11.0 server.

 

Questions: 

 

1. When I searched the Broadcom website, I couldn't find anything for "9211-8i". I found similar product models like 9210, but didn't see anything listed for "9211-8i" as this guide is written for. Am I completely missing something here? 
2. What is the correct firmware P.xx version to use with my M1015 to crossflash it to LSI IT mode, for use with FreeNAS 11.0? I tried asking over at the FreeNAS forums, but didn't get any answers to my thread over there that were definitive. For anyone using the M1015 for FreeNAS 11.0, which version are you using of the firmware and where did you find them? 
3. I have two motherboards/computers that I can use to do the crossflash. One mobo is the one included with my Dell R510 and the other is my desktop, which is an AsRock OC Formula Z170. Is it any easier to flash the M1015 on one mobo over the other? 

Thanks, alpenwasser and everyone else who has contributed to this thread. Can't wait to get my FreeNAS build online and start backing up my important files!

[vertigo220]

Thanks for this guide. I found it helpful when flashing my 9217, but there are some things I ran into that either weren't covered and should be added to help those that encounter them or are covered but could maybe be made more prominent. Also there are some layout/order and other errors in your post.

The first issue I ran into was trying to boot into an EFI shell. My motherboard (ASRock X299 Taichi) has the option in BIOS to restart in a built-in shell, but that's clearly a lie on their part, as there's no shell built in. And you would think they would at least provide one for download from their site, but no. So I had to go searching for one. I then made a couple copies of it and named them shell.efi, shell64.efi, and shellx64.efi, since I wasn't sure which version I needed (turned out to be shell.efi, but different motherboards will vary, so if unsure, it's best to just save time and make all three). I also put a copy of them in the root directory and in the \efi\boot directory, again since I wasn't sure which was needed. I never bothered to figure this one out, since it doesn't really matter and I didn't want to spend any more time on it.

The next issue I had was trying to get a list of drives. While it provides this initially, I started trying basic commands right away, and so moved them off the screen. I also didn't realize that page-up/page-down scroll the screen. I found that "mount" provides the list, and the "-b" parameter does so a page at a time (so "mount -b").

Once I got the drive with the LSI files on it mounted, the next problem I had was that I didn't have sas2flash.efi, only sas2flash.exe (and sas2flsh.exe). This is the part that's in your instructions, but, at least for me, it was very easy to miss and caused me to have to reboot, download the file, reboot, wait forever for the LSI card to initialize again, then go back into the shell. The reason I overlooked it is because I assumed (I know, I know) that I already had the proper files, since I just saw sas2flash and thought "Yup, I have that" without realizing an exe file wouldn't work in the EFI shell (yeah, should've been obvious, but I just didn't even think about it).

Then I ran into yet another hurdle: I got the error "InitShellApp: Application not started from Shell" when trying to run sas2flash.efi. This error happens when you're running an incompatible shell version (apparently only v1 is compatible with the flash tool). This is the one that ended up working for me.

Once I got to the point I could actually run sas2flash.efi, I tried the erase command, but your post doesn't specify how exactly to do it, so I assumed the "6" was the card number, so I did "sas2flash.efi -o -e 0" which gave me an "invalid erase option specified" error. After some searching, I discovered the "6" is part of the standard parameters. So you might want to edit the post to clarify that.

Finally, you can skip flashing the BIOS (so erase then flash the firmware only) if you don't need the features provided by it, such as booting from one of the drives connected to the card or using staggered spin-up, which will DRASTICALLY speed up boot time, since it doesn't take the few minutes to initialize the card.

I also want to mention, in case it helps anyone else, that when I first put the card in my computer, it would only very occasionally actually show up and initialize on boot, and both times were when I was going into BIOS (no idea if that's related or if it was just coincidence), so I never got it to show in Windows. I wasn't sure if the card was bad or what, but the fact it was showing up sometimes led me to believe it wasn't. I then switched it from PCIe slot 5 to slot 3 and it worked every time. I have no idea why this was. Slot 5 is definitely good, since I just pulled a SATA card I had been using for a long time from it to put the LSI card in. My motherboard will run slots 1/2/3/5 at 16x/0x/8x/0x or 8x/0x/8x/8x, so maybe the video card is trying to run at 16x and shutting off slot 5 but, again, the SATA card worked fine in that slot. So if anyone happens to run across this, wondering why your card isn't showing up in Windows/Device Manager/etc, try switching slots, even if it shouldn't matter.

As for the errors in your post, the text refers to your drive as ft0, but the pictures show it as fs0. Then, when describing the erase and install procedure, things are out of order. You have this line:

"Then flash it with the new files:   Which should look like this: (click image for full res)"

followed by the image, then these lines:

"You can check if the new flash was successful with:

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

Which gave me this output: (click image for full res)"

followed by another image.

The line with the sas2flash command should go before the first image, like this:

"Then flash it with the new files:

sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom (and should probably add a note here that the "-b mptsas2.rom" is optional and leaving it out will speed up boot times)

Which should look like this: (click image for full res)"

IMAGE

Then the next lines should read:

"You can check if the new flash was successful with:

sas2flash.efi -listall (this line is *after* the image showing its use)

Which gave me this output: (click image for full res)"