Nas issues

[Lordpickleboy]

So finally after months of hunting down parts I have what I need to boot my NAS... Well it didn't go exactly like I thought I bought a LSI SAS 9210 8i it flashed with a expander card. When I boot the server it loads and detects all 10 HDDs but it boots the LSI ROM before letting me access mobo BIOS I want to run this server with unraid someone please explain what I can do to remedy this. I am a first timer with servers but I do know desktops well. 

[Senzelian]

Sadly I'm a noob when it comes to HBAs, but on some boards it prompts you to enter the BIOS/UEFI after a CMOS reset automatically.

[Lordpickleboy]

Issue I have on boot it runs the LSI ROM thing then kicks me to a menu where I can choose boot options with just "Power Off" which that's self explanatory 

[Windows7ge]

An Dell PERC H310 for budget-build, or a LSI 9201-8i would have been good choices.

 

Even if it wants you to configure an array you should be able to bypass the menu and continue to bootable media.

[Senzelian]

Again, I have no idea about LSI cards, but I found a few videos from a guy on YT that seems to know what he's doing and maybe, just maybe, there is something in there that helps:
 

 

 

Again, I have no clue. I'm literally just throwing stuff at you and hope something sticks and helps you out somehow  

If not, well at least I tried  

[Jarsky]

36 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Sadly I'm a noob

 

22 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Again, I have no idea about LSI cards

 

22 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Again, I have no clue. I'm literally just throwing stuff at you and hope something sticks and helps you out somehow  

 

You could leave it for one of us experienced with LSI gear to respond? Which is a good number of people in this sub. 

 

 

52 minutes ago, Lordpickleboy said:

So finally after months of hunting down parts I have what I need to boot my NAS... Well it didn't go exactly like I thought I bought a LSI SAS 9210 8i it flashed with a expander card. When I boot the server it loads and detects all 10 HDDs but it boots the LSI ROM before letting me access mobo BIOS I want to run this server with unraid someone please explain what I can do to remedy this. I am a first timer with servers but I do know desktops well. 

 

This is quite normal for the LSI boot utility to come up at the start as it's a bootable device. 

If you wan't to go into the SAS Configuration utility then spam Ctrl+C. Otherwise the controller will continue through its detect and spin-up procedure. You should then see a list of all detected drives, and it should continue on to any other boot roms, and to your boot order. 

 

Remember to boot into UnRAID, make sure your USB device is set before any other devices (like hard drives attached to your motheboard) in your UEFI/BIOS. 

[Senzelian]

5 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

You could leave it for one of us experienced with LSI gear to respond? Which is a good number of people in this sub. 

I rather try to help and make people aware of me not having a clue, than to do nothing.

I'm sorry if that has caused potentially any issues.

[Jarsky]

4 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

I rather try to help and make people aware of me not having a clue, than to do nothing.

I'm sorry if that has caused potentially any issues.

 

That's cool trying to help, but we need to clearly know what the problem is before just throwing out suggestions, especially ones that risk bricking the card. 

In the OP's case we need to know if hes getting stuck on the boot menu and it's not progressing; removing the boot rom isn't always necessary. 

 

I'd suggest trying the card in a different PCIe slot first, and also checking the Motherboard BIOS for something called Optional ROM and try disabling that. It's a feature of most motherboards that will disable the boot rom of Peripheral cards. 

[Lordpickleboy]

I have tried to spam ctr c I see where it says to do so but refuses to go through to anything as far as another slot that's not possible as I have my controller and expander taking up both my 2 lanes I did fail to mention I am using ddr3 last general desktop type hardware its a Asrock 970m pro3 running a fx 8320e on 16GB of ram I physically can't get to the mobo bios as the boot utility prevents that screen from showing up

[Lordpickleboy]

1 hour ago, Jarsky said:

 

That's cool trying to help, but we need to clearly know what the problem is before just throwing out suggestions, especially ones that risk bricking the card. 

In the OP's case we need to know if hes getting stuck on the boot menu and it's not progressing; removing the boot rom isn't always necessary. 

 

I'd suggest trying the card in a different PCIe slot first, and also checking the Motherboard BIOS for something called Optional ROM and try disabling that. It's a feature of most motherboards that will disable the boot rom of Peripheral cards. 

Also to go with that post above I know the card itself works as ot runs the check for drives all 10 show correctly its just it won't let me boot via mobo bios and as previously said ctr c does nothing after that it says f11 for bios that goes to a geeyish screen and never loads anything

[Jarsky]

30 minutes ago, Lordpickleboy said:

I have tried to spam ctr c I see where it says to do so but refuses to go through to anything as far as another slot that's not possible as I have my controller and expander taking up both my 2 lanes I did fail to mention I am using ddr3 last general desktop type hardware its a Asrock 970m pro3 running a fx 8320e on 16GB of ram I physically can't get to the mobo bios as the boot utility prevents that screen from showing up

 

Can you try unplugging it, boot into BIOS and see if you can find an option called CSM? It might be under ACPI Configuration or something like that. Enable it, and you should get a Storage Option Rom / OpRom. There should be a disable type option for it. Give that a try and see what happens. 

 

You could also check to make sure Secure Boot is disabled, and give that a try. 

 

I do actually have a spare ASRock 970 Pro3 Rev2.0 & FX8320e system and a few spare LSI HBA's but its in storage, so I might not be able to get to it any time soon to try it out for myself. 

 

Alternatively it could be a BIOS/UEFI compatibility issue. So either:

a) You can put the card in another PC it boots up in and try re flashing the card with a UEFI firmware such as this procedure: https://forums.serverbuilds.net/t/guide-updating-your-lsi-sas-controller-with-a-uefi-motherboard/131 or;

b) You can put the card in another PC it boots up in, and follow the first video @Senzelian linked, to remove the BIOS rom. He linked Art of Server who actually does a lot of indepth RAID and storage content. 

[Lordpickleboy]

2 hours ago, Jarsky said:

 

Can you try unplugging it, boot into BIOS and see if you can find an option called CSM? It might be under ACPI Configuration or something like that. Enable it, and you should get a Storage Option Rom / OpRom. There should be a disable type option for it. Give that a try and see what happens. 

 

You could also check to make sure Secure Boot is disabled, and give that a try. 

 

I do actually have a spare ASRock 970 Pro3 Rev2.0 & FX8320e system and a few spare LSI HBA's but its in storage, so I might not be able to get to it any time soon to try it out for myself. 

 

Alternatively it could be a BIOS/UEFI compatibility issue. So either:

a) You can put the card in another PC it boots up in and try re flashing the card with a UEFI firmware such as this procedure: https://forums.serverbuilds.net/t/guide-updating-your-lsi-sas-controller-with-a-uefi-motherboard/131 or;

b) You can put the card in another PC it boots up in, and follow the first video @Senzelian linked, to remove the BIOS rom. He linked Art of Server who actually does a lot of indepth RAID and storage content. 

So had an interesting issue I pulled both the LSI card and the expander out booted it up installed fresh install windows and I notice my motherboard no longer shows up on boot up it appears the SLI bootup procedure over wrote my motherboard Bios and I can't find any way to flash the bios as the Asrock 970m pro3 is suppose to be plug and play with build in bios so the drivers for it don't actually exist from what I can see which may be the whole problem I'm having and why my bios won't open and it locks me into the LSI Bootup utility 

[Jarsky]

Perhaps you're talking about a UEFI Boot? Can you take a photo of the screen you're talking about.

Theres no way it could overwrite the actual EEPROM chip. 

[Lordpickleboy]

7 hours ago, Jarsky said:

Perhaps you're talking about a UEFI Boot? Can you take a photo of the screen you're talking about.

Theres no way it could overwrite the actual EEPROM chip. 

Attached an image below but just a bit more if I press f11 for bios it kicks to a geeyish screen with nothing on it also same goes for running setup

[Lordpickleboy]

And it stopped posting all together I think its the CMOS battery though that's my best guess its posting to a blinking white line with a number 99

[Lordpickleboy]

As to back up last post I had some new batteries laying around that didn't solve it so something is up 

[Jarsky]

This is the motherboard BIOS, indicated by the AMI (American Megatrends Inc.). 

Also the Turbo UCC refers to unlocking cores on AMD CPU's (like I used to do with my old Phenom)

 

Really weird though that its just getting stuck like that....perhaps try unplugging all the boot devices (disks) and see if that makes a difference?

I mean I have had an issue before where my BIOS on one of my motherboards just randomly corrupted after an overclock...but it seems like you didnt do anything but install Windows? The fact you could reboot and install Windows just fine, it shouldn't be related to the cards

[Lordpickleboy]

3 hours ago, Jarsky said:

This is the motherboard BIOS, indicated by the AMI (American Megatrends Inc.). 

Also the Turbo UCC refers to unlocking cores on AMD CPU's (like I used to do with my old Phenom)

 

Really weird though that its just getting stuck like that....perhaps try unplugging all the boot devices (disks) and see if that makes a difference?

I mean I have had an issue before where my BIOS on one of my motherboards just randomly corrupted after an overclock...but it seems like you didnt do anything but install Windows? The fact you could reboot and install Windows just fine, it shouldn't be related to the cards

I even followed mobo instructions to reset CMOS to no change I'm wondering if the mobo is shot 

[Lordpickleboy]

Is it possible the motherboard didn't support the sli card which caused it to brick? When I had windows on it only displayed black and white

[Jarsky]

15 minutes ago, Lordpickleboy said:

Is it possible the motherboard didn't support the sli card which caused it to brick? When I had windows on it only displayed black and white

 

You mean LSI card? no it shouldn't have

It sounds like UEFI corruption, which gets cleared with a CMOS reset. Did you try this CMOS clear procedure? http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=630&title=how-to-clear-cmos-via-battery-removal

 

[Lordpickleboy]

1 hour ago, Jarsky said:

 

You mean LSI card? no it shouldn't have

It sounds like UEFI corruption, which gets cleared with a CMOS reset. Did you try this CMOS clear procedure? http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=630&title=how-to-clear-cmos-via-battery-removal

 

Yes I mean LSI to many letter combos in the tech world lol I'll try when I get home from work I'll set the jumper and do a proper CMOS clear I thought I had earlier but I may have to try a full 4 hour do it before bed and when I wake up reset to the proper position and reboot it and hope the UEFI resets I'll notify here what results then and if this fixes the UEFI issue and I'm able to get into my bios I'll resume prior steps to solving original issue with the LSI card 

 

Also as an edit its possible I didn't let it sit for a full proper 10min and that its stuck in a halfway clear state which led to it not wanting to post at all

[Lordpickleboy]

Well sadly I cleared the cmos over night reset the jumper and battery plugged it all in and blinking white line with the number 99 bottom right anyone has a solve for this please chip in

[Lordpickleboy]

If I plug in the LSI card it spins through the utility it detects the drives then proceeds to a screen blinking white line 99 in bottom right and in the top middle B2

[Lordpickleboy]

Is my motherboard shot and should I look at picking up a new one this mobo only costs $60ish

[Jarsky]

It appears to be to do with the motherboard, unsure exactly what the problem is though...I think Error 99 is a fairly generic error code off memory...i've had it before on other boards running AMI BIOS and it can be several things. 

 

I'd recommend trying to boot it with the bare minimum. Unplug any PCIe cards and SATA storage. Also if you have multiple RAM modules, try removing them and booting with just a single stick in Slot 1. See if you can get it to POST into BIOS.