Guide: Flashing H310/H710/H810 Mini & full size to IT Mode

[fohdeesha]

updated the guide to finally move the H310 SBR flashing steps to freedos, to match the other models. All card models now flash the same way, first in freedos to wipe the card and flash the appropriate sbr, then in linux to flash the firmware file

also added note to intro page that hard drives must be removed first (a few reports of drives being plugged in causing the firmware flash to fail inside linux). New ISOs built and the linux ISO is built on a newer debian so hopefully continuing to reduce the amount of compatibility/flash issues

 

[Coltonc18]

did you choose bios boot menu then select the flash drive/cdrom?

I hit bios boot menu, and then nothing happened.... I think something was wrong with the whole system. I had just gotten it so I contacted those I got it from and sent it back. They said they were unable to get anything to work properly either....so waiting on a replacement... Glad it wasn't just my fault lol.

 

[thx1138]

I flashed a Dell PERC H310 into a 9211-8i and I cannot see all 8 SATA drives. My silkscreened "PORT A" isn't showing any drives. I checked with `lsblk` and `lsiutil -p1 16` and swapped SAS cables. So devices 0-3 do not present themselves while 4-7 do.

- Ubuntu 22.04 LTS kernel 5.15.0
- Supermicro X9SCM 2.3a BIOS
- Xeon E3-1290 Sandy Bridge processor
- Dell PERC H310 in Slot 6, the 2nd closest to the socket, which pipes direct to the CPU at an 8x electrical link
- SAS to x4 SATA cables, no backplanes
- The card runs with a makeshift 140mm fan over the top of it for good airflow in a setup bench

The four drives in "PORT B" show up. When I swap the "SFF-8087 to x4 SATA" cables around from A to B, I can see the other four drives. This rules out a bad breakout cable or modular power supply power cable. I cleared SBR and did not put any data there. The 2118it.bin image has an md5 hash of 8d8cd74b8080bbe100aedb8dff092301.


`lsiutil -p1 1`

```
Current active firmware version is 14000700 (20.00.07)
Firmware image's version is MPTFW-20.00.07.00-IT
LSI Logic
Not Packaged Yet
```

`lspci | grep LSI`

```
02:00.0 SCSI storage controller: Broadcom / LSI SAS2008 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 [Falcon] (rev 03)
```

How do I get SLOT A working?

 

[ericloewe]

It could simply be defective and there'd be nothing you can do, other than replacing it.

 

[fohdeesha]

I flashed a Dell PERC H310 into a 9211-8i and I cannot see all 8 SATA drives. My silkscreened "PORT A" isn't showing any drives. I checked with `lsblk` and `lsiutil -p1 16` and swapped SAS cables. So devices 0-3 do not present themselves while 4-7 do.

- Ubuntu 22.04 LTS kernel 5.15.0
- Supermicro X9SCM 2.3a BIOS
- Xeon E3-1290 Sandy Bridge processor
- Dell PERC H310 in Slot 6, the 2nd closest to the socket, which pipes direct to the CPU at an 8x electrical link
- SAS to x4 SATA cables, no backplanes
- The card runs with a makeshift 140mm fan over the top of it for good airflow in a setup bench

The four drives in "PORT B" show up. When I swap the "SFF-8087 to x4 SATA" cables around from A to B, I can see the other four drives. This rules out a bad breakout cable or modular power supply power cable. I cleared SBR and did not put any data there. The 2118it.bin image has an md5 hash of 8d8cd74b8080bbe100aedb8dff092301.


`lsiutil -p1 1`

```
Current active firmware version is 14000700 (20.00.07)
Firmware image's version is MPTFW-20.00.07.00-IT
LSI Logic
Not Packaged Yet
```

`lspci | grep LSI`

```
02:00.0 SCSI storage controller: Broadcom / LSI SAS2008 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 [Falcon] (rev 03)
```

How do I get SLOT A working?

What guide are you following? It doesn't sound like mine if you cleared your SBR

 

[thx1138]

What guide are you following? It doesn't sound like mine if you cleared your SBR

I tried to follow the version of your guide that was online at that time, but it was confusing and felt incomplete for me. To troubleshoot, I looked where ever else searches took me and proceeded with those.

As I go through your guide now, I see that significant writing changes were made recently a few days ago and that the ISO image downloads are newer: Move 310 SBR flashing to DOS like others · Fohdeesha/lab-docu@6a07bcf Essentially, the parts about running things within FreeDOS were missing, and I was stuck on first trying to complete the Linux steps.

Thanks for calling out the stuff about the SBR. I was able to solve my issue.

To fix from where I was at, I wrote H310FLMD.sbr to the SBR:

- Copy the H310FLMD.sbr (d9a2f890c5f68e5a171e04b2989bfa30) on the existing Freedos boot media I had (the v2.1) (I chose this file from seeing it in 310FLCRS.bat on the v2.2 image)
- Boot into that environment
- Run `megarec -writesbr 0 D:\isolinux\h310flmdr.sbr`
- Shutdown power. Turn on power.
- Boot into the system's regular Linux environment (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS kernel 5.15.0)
- All 8 drives on the two SFF-8087 to x4 SATA cables in PORT A and PORT B are now present in `lsiutil -p1 16` and `lsblk`

 

[fohdeesha]

I tried to follow the version of your guide that was online at that time, but it was confusing and felt incomplete for me. To troubleshoot, I looked where ever else searches took me and proceeded with those.

As I go through your guide now, I see that significant writing changes were made recently a few days ago and that the ISO image downloads are newer: Move 310 SBR flashing to DOS like others · Fohdeesha/lab-docu@6a07bcf Essentially, the parts about running things within FreeDOS were missing, and I was stuck on first trying to complete the Linux steps.

Thanks for calling out the stuff about the SBR. I was able to solve my issue.

To fix from where I was at, I wrote H310FLMD.sbr to the SBR:

- Copy the H310FLMD.sbr (d9a2f890c5f68e5a171e04b2989bfa30) on the existing Freedos boot media I had (the v2.1) (I chose this file from seeing it in 310FLCRS.bat on the v2.2 image)
- Boot into that environment
- Run `megarec -writesbr 0 D:\isolinux\h310flmdr.sbr`
- Shutdown power. Turn on power.
- Boot into the system's regular Linux environment (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS kernel 5.15.0)
- All 8 drives on the two SFF-8087 to x4 SATA cables in PORT A and PORT B are now present in `lsiutil -p1 16` and `lsblk`

for what it's worth the previous version of the guide did the exact same thing (flashed the same SBR and firmware file), but it did it all in one step inside linux which was much easier. However the H7xx cards can't be SBR flashed in linux so all their guides required freedos, and maintaining docu publishing scripts and stuff for two very different methods got annoying so I just switched the h310 stuff over to the longer method

 

[Dustin123]

Hi everyone,

I have a dell r720xd. I've been trying for the past day using the instructions at Introduction - Fohdeesha Docs to set my h710p mini card to it mode. I've downloaded the zip file which contains a FreeDos and Debian ISO.

But no matter if I load up the FreeDos ISO using idrac virtual media, or making a bootable USB with windows, or a bootable USB with ubuntu and boot in BIOS mode I get errors that state

"InitDiskWarning using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 0e: with calculated values 0-32-33 instead of 0-1-1"

And this error repeats itself a few times with different suspect partition values.

Then something flashes to the screen briefly that I can "Press F8 to trace or F5 to skip CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT". If I press F8 to trace, or F5 to skip, or wait 2 seconds and press neither, I still can't get to the dos prompt where I can enter in "info" to start the IT mode tutorial outlined in Introduction - Fohdeesha Docs

Has anyone ran into this problem before. No idea what I"m doing wrong here. I included a screen shot of the error I see.

Additional information:

I'm able to boot with the Debian ISO that is in the zip file in Fohdeesha's guide using idrac virtual media, however, this is step 2 of the tutorial and without knowing the SAS address I'm worried I might mess up my raid card if I skip step 1. Perhaps the FreeDos iso in the zip file you download has an issue, or there is just some other step I'm missing on why FreeDos ISO isn't working on my dell r720xd.

I'm also able to download a FreeDos 1.3 ISO from FreeDOS | The FreeDOS Project and load it using idrac virtual media and it boots up just fine. I do see a similar error with the partition errors and "Press F8 to trace or F5 to skip CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT" but waiting a few seconds allows the freedos to continue which differs from the freedos iso I get from Fohdeesha's guide which just stays stuck on the screenshot I shared.

 

[fohdeesha]

Hi everyone,

I have a dell r720xd. I've been trying for the past day using the instructions at Introduction - Fohdeesha Docs to set my h710p mini card to it mode. I've downloaded the zip file which contains a FreeDos and Debian ISO.

But no matter if I load up the FreeDos ISO using idrac virtual media, or making a bootable USB with windows, or a bootable USB with ubuntu and boot in BIOS mode I get errors that state

"InitDiskWarning using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 0e: with calculated values 0-32-33 instead of 0-1-1"

And this error repeats itself a few times with different suspect partition values.

Then something flashes to the screen briefly that I can "Press F8 to trace or F5 to skip CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT". If I press F8 to trace, or F5 to skip, or wait 2 seconds and press neither, I still can't get to the dos prompt where I can enter in "info" to start the IT mode tutorial outlined in Introduction - Fohdeesha Docs

Has anyone ran into this problem before. No idea what I"m doing wrong here. I included a screen shot of the error I see.

Additional information:

I'm able to boot with the Debian ISO that is in the zip file in Fohdeesha's guide using idrac virtual media, however, this is step 2 of the tutorial and without knowing the SAS address I'm worried I might mess up my raid card if I skip step 1. Perhaps the FreeDos iso in the zip file you download has an issue, or there is just some other step I'm missing on why FreeDos ISO isn't working on my dell r720xd.

I'm also able to download a FreeDos 1.3 ISO from FreeDOS | The FreeDOS Project and load it using idrac virtual media and it boots up just fine. I do see a similar error with the partition errors and "Press F8 to trace or F5 to skip CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT" but waiting a few seconds allows the freedos to continue which differs from the freedos iso I get from Fohdeesha's guide which just stays stuck on the screenshot I shared.

 

[Dustin123]

Hi fohdeesha,

What do you mean by your image please hold. That I need to wait for FreeDos to load (I left it running for an hour for it to get to the boot prompt but it just stayed stuck). Or do you mean your testing out the FreeDos iso to see if you can replicate the issue I'm having.

If I need to wait for the FreeDos prompt to load how long should this take to get to the boot prompt?

 

[fohdeesha]

Hi fohdeesha,

What do you mean by your image please hold. That I need to wait for FreeDos to load (I left it running for an hour for it to get to the boot prompt but it just stayed stuck). Or do you mean your testing out the FreeDos iso to see if you can replicate the issue I'm having.

If I need to wait for the FreeDos prompt to load how long should this take to get to the boot prompt?

I mean that I probably broke something during the last ISO build

 

[Dustin123]

I mean that I probably broke something during the last ISO build

I see. Thanks for responding. If you end up making a change to the iso could you reply back to this thread and I'll re-download it and test it out again.

 

[fohdeesha]

Hi everyone,

I have a dell r720xd. I've been trying for the past day using the instructions at Introduction - Fohdeesha Docs to set my h710p mini card to it mode. I've downloaded the zip file which contains a FreeDos and Debian ISO.

But no matter if I load up the FreeDos ISO using idrac virtual media, or making a bootable USB with windows, or a bootable USB with ubuntu and boot in BIOS mode I get errors that state

"InitDiskWarning using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 0e: with calculated values 0-32-33 instead of 0-1-1"

And this error repeats itself a few times with different suspect partition values.

Then something flashes to the screen briefly that I can "Press F8 to trace or F5 to skip CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT". If I press F8 to trace, or F5 to skip, or wait 2 seconds and press neither, I still can't get to the dos prompt where I can enter in "info" to start the IT mode tutorial outlined in Introduction - Fohdeesha Docs

Has anyone ran into this problem before. No idea what I"m doing wrong here. I included a screen shot of the error I see.

Additional information:

I'm able to boot with the Debian ISO that is in the zip file in Fohdeesha's guide using idrac virtual media, however, this is step 2 of the tutorial and without knowing the SAS address I'm worried I might mess up my raid card if I skip step 1. Perhaps the FreeDos iso in the zip file you download has an issue, or there is just some other step I'm missing on why FreeDos ISO isn't working on my dell r720xd.

I'm also able to download a FreeDos 1.3 ISO from FreeDOS | The FreeDOS Project and load it using idrac virtual media and it boots up just fine. I do see a similar error with the partition errors and "Press F8 to trace or F5 to skip CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT" but waiting a few seconds allows the freedos to continue which differs from the freedos iso I get from Fohdeesha's guide which just stays stuck on the screenshot I shared.

OK, I've spent a couple hours trying to reproduce this and I can't. I can succesfully boot the new freedos image using idrac virtual media, and burning it to a usb via rufus, on r620s, r320s, and r720s (and my old laptop just to double check). Can you delete any files and zips you have, redownload the zip package, and confirm your download isn't getting corrupted by checking the md5 hash of your download versus what's displayed on the site? Then try booting it via idrac virtual media, during server boot, press f11 for boot menu, choose bios boot menu, then choose "virtual cd" (NOT virtual floppy)

 

[Dustin123]

OK, I've spent a couple hours trying to reproduce this and I can't. I can succesfully boot the new freedos image using idrac virtual media, and burning it to a usb via rufus, on r620s, r320s, and r720s (and my old laptop just to double check). Can you delete any files and zips you have, redownload the zip package, and confirm your download isn't getting corrupted by checking the md5 hash of your download versus what's displayed on the site? Then try booting it via idrac virtual media, during server boot, press f11 for boot menu, choose bios boot menu, then choose "virtual cd" (NOT virtual floppy)

Thanks for retrying this on various machines Fohdeesha. I really appreciate it.

I checked the MD5 hash of the zip file and it does match what is on the site. I also got the MD5 hash of the unzipped files as well.

$ md5sum perc-crossflash-v2.3.zip
d0f15f46112762f16fe32832cd9a7492 perc-crossflash-v2.3.zip

$ md5sum deesh-FreeDOS-v2.2.iso deesh-Linux-v2.3.iso v2.3.txt
c389a233c40d7e73a036f069fd0e55f8 deesh-FreeDOS-v2.2.iso
2b4a5628244d3eda28d71a634a30d470 deesh-Linux-v2.3.iso
357199d0d6fd7e31c7211ec69262760f v2.3.txt

The way you recommend of trying to boot the customized version of free dos is exactly the same steps that I've been trying.

What I'll try next is to download the zip file on a windows computer and try unzipping it and loading it up thru idract virtual media. Maybe my version of Archive Manager on Ubuntu 2022 is corrupting the unzipped files somehow.

Edit 1:

Tried on a windows laptop and here are the md5 hashes. It's weird that the zip file has a different md5 hash but the unzipped files have the same md5 hash files.

C:\Users\dusti\Downloads>certutil -hashfile perc-crossflash-v2.3.zip
SHA1 hash of perc-crossflash-v2.3.zip:
bd2a18689c2568d66db0ccb61cc6429d3bed28c4
CertUtil: -hashfile command completed successfully.

C:\Users\dusti\Downloads>certutil -hashfile deesh-FreeDOS-v2.2.iso MD5
MD5 hash of deesh-FreeDOS-v2.2.iso:
c389a233c40d7e73a036f069fd0e55f8
CertUtil: -hashfile command completed successfully.

C:\Users\dusti\Downloads>certutil -hashfile deesh-Linux-v2.3.iso MD5
MD5 hash of deesh-Linux-v2.3.iso:
2b4a5628244d3eda28d71a634a30d470
CertUtil: -hashfile command completed successfully.

Edit 2:

Tried downloading the zip file with my macbook pro and I'm getting the same md5 hash values.

md5 perc-crossflash-v2.3.zip
MD5 (perc-crossflash-v2.3.zip) = d0f15f46112762f16fe32832cd9a7492

md5 deesh-FreeDOS-v2.2.iso deesh-Linux-v2.3.iso v2.3.txt
MD5 (deesh-FreeDOS-v2.2.iso) = c389a233c40d7e73a036f069fd0e55f8
MD5 (deesh-Linux-v2.3.iso) = 2b4a5628244d3eda28d71a634a30d470
MD5 (v2.3.txt) = 357199d0d6fd7e31c7211ec69262760f

I just tried to perform the idrac virtual media loading steps with my macbook and ran into the same problem where it just hangs after mentioning the suspect partitions. If it helps my idrac is running on the dell r720xd is 2.65.65.65 and I'm using the HTML5 viewer to load the virtual media.

 

[Dustin123]

OK, I've spent a couple hours trying to reproduce this and I can't. I can succesfully boot the new freedos image using idrac virtual media, and burning it to a usb via rufus, on r620s, r320s, and r720s (and my old laptop just to double check). Can you delete any files and zips you have, redownload the zip package, and confirm your download isn't getting corrupted by checking the md5 hash of your download versus what's displayed on the site? Then try booting it via idrac virtual media, during server boot, press f11 for boot menu, choose bios boot menu, then choose "virtual cd" (NOT virtual floppy)

fohdeesha could you share what version of idrac you have running on your r720s. I am not sure what else to try. I completed the instructions that you had in both the HTML5 virtual console, and the java native virtual console with my ubuntu laptop and it still failed with the same issue (getting stuck on the suspect partition step).

I'm running idrac 2.65.65.65 which I believe is the latest version you can get for the dell r720xd, but perhaps it has an issue with the freedos ISO? Is there anything else that could cause the script to fail, for example if my raid card is bricked / trashed or if any other piece of hardware is having an issue on the server could this cause the ISO from booting fully so I can get to a dos prompt to type in "info"?

 

[fohdeesha]

fohdeesha could you share what version of idrac you have running on your r720s. I am not sure what else to try. I completed the instructions that you had in both the HTML5 virtual console, and the java native virtual console with my ubuntu laptop and it still failed with the same issue (getting stuck on the suspect partition step).

I'm running idrac 2.65.65.65 which I believe is the latest version you can get for the dell r720xd, but perhaps it has an issue with the freedos ISO? Is there anything else that could cause the script to fail, for example if my raid card is bricked / trashed or if any other piece of hardware is having an issue on the server could this cause the ISO from booting fully so I can get to a dos prompt to type in "info"?

running the same idrac version (latest). I haven't gotten any other reports of this either, and I know quite a few people use the guide daily. Are you on the latest bios (2.9.0 I believe)?

Have you tried burning the iso to an actual usb drive, and booting the server off of the usb drive? Try that if you haven't. If it still doesn't work, reset your bios settings to defaults entirely, then set the settings outlined in the guide, and try again. I think you may have something set weird somewhere

Just to be sure, you're mounting the ISO using this box right?

 

[Dustin123]

I was not on the latest bios version. I was on version 2.6.1. I did upgrade to version 2.9.0 following the steps outlined in

but once it completed I tried again and same results stuck on the suspect partition size setting.

I'm using the Map CD/DVD option with virtual media like your attached screenshot. Next I'll try reseting the bios back to default settings and flip off the following

Processor Settings > Virtualization Technology
Integrated Devices > SR-IOV Global Enable
Integrated Devices > I/OAT DMA Engine

They are currently all disabled but perhaps there are additional settings that need to be off as well that you get from defaulting the bios. I bought this server from a 3rd party company that was using it for hosting. Perhaps they had some other non compatible bios settings in place.

Edit:

After resetting all bios to defaults and flipping off the 3 things above to disabled it is still stuck on the suspect partition step if I use idrac virtual media.

Burned an ISO with the freedos version extracted from the zip. Verified the MD5 hash of the zip and it matches what is on the website and verified the MD5 hash of the custom freedos install of c389a233c40d7e73a036f069fd0e55f8 and same thing. Still stuck on the suspect partition step. The rufus tool I used to burn the iso has two modes one is dd mode and there is another mode that lets you write to the flash drive even after an ISO is burned. Tried both and no progress with either mode.

I have no idea why my server is acting up with this ISO. It doesn't sound like anyone else has had this issue. I tried to read back other messages to this thread but couldn't come up with anything.

fohdeesha do you have previous versions of the .zip files around that I could try?

 

[fohdeesha]

I was not on the latest bios version. I was on version 2.6.1. I did upgrade to version 2.9.0 following the steps outlined in

but once it completed I tried again and same results stuck on the suspect partition size setting.

I'm using the Map CD/DVD option with virtual media like your attached screenshot. Next I'll try reseting the bios back to default settings and flip off the following

Processor Settings > Virtualization Technology
Integrated Devices > SR-IOV Global Enable
Integrated Devices > I/OAT DMA Engine

They are currently all disabled but perhaps there are additional settings that need to be off as well that you get from defaulting the bios. I bought this server from a 3rd party company that was using it for hosting. Perhaps they had some other non compatible bios settings in place.

Edit:

After resetting all bios to defaults and flipping off the 3 things above to disabled it is still stuck on the suspect partition step if I use idrac virtual media.

Burned an ISO with the freedos version extracted from the zip. Verified the MD5 hash of the zip and it matches what is on the website and verified the MD5 hash of the custom freedos install of c389a233c40d7e73a036f069fd0e55f8 and same thing. Still stuck on the suspect partition step. The rufus tool I used to burn the iso has two modes one is dd mode and there is another mode that lets you write to the flash drive even after an ISO is burned. Tried both and no progress with either mode.

I have no idea why my server is acting up with this ISO. It doesn't sound like anyone else has had this issue. I tried to read back other messages to this thread but couldn't come up with anything.

fohdeesha do you have previous versions of the .zip files around that I could try?

here's the previous zip but if you're trying to do an h310 flash the files won't be on it - https://fohdeesha.com/docs/store/perc/perc-crossflash-v2.2.zip

 

[fohdeesha]

I was not on the latest bios version. I was on version 2.6.1. I did upgrade to version 2.9.0 following the steps outlined in

but once it completed I tried again and same results stuck on the suspect partition size setting.

I'm using the Map CD/DVD option with virtual media like your attached screenshot. Next I'll try reseting the bios back to default settings and flip off the following

Processor Settings > Virtualization Technology
Integrated Devices > SR-IOV Global Enable
Integrated Devices > I/OAT DMA Engine

They are currently all disabled but perhaps there are additional settings that need to be off as well that you get from defaulting the bios. I bought this server from a 3rd party company that was using it for hosting. Perhaps they had some other non compatible bios settings in place.

Edit:

After resetting all bios to defaults and flipping off the 3 things above to disabled it is still stuck on the suspect partition step if I use idrac virtual media.

Burned an ISO with the freedos version extracted from the zip. Verified the MD5 hash of the zip and it matches what is on the website and verified the MD5 hash of the custom freedos install of c389a233c40d7e73a036f069fd0e55f8 and same thing. Still stuck on the suspect partition step. The rufus tool I used to burn the iso has two modes one is dd mode and there is another mode that lets you write to the flash drive even after an ISO is burned. Tried both and no progress with either mode.

I have no idea why my server is acting up with this ISO. It doesn't sound like anyone else has had this issue. I tried to read back other messages to this thread but couldn't come up with anything.

fohdeesha do you have previous versions of the .zip files around that I could try?

You're being sure to set the bios boot mode to bios right? Under Boot Settings > Boot Mode > Set to BIOS

do you have any extra PCIe devices or addons in this system? It seems like freedos is crashing as soon as it gets to finishing loading the kernel

 

[Dustin123]

You're being sure to set the bios boot mode to bios right? Under Boot Settings > Boot Mode > Set to BIOS

do you have any extra PCIe devices or addons in this system? It seems like freedos is crashing as soon as it gets to finishing loading the kernel

I have good news

I verified that my boot settings were correct and when I ran the previous version of the iso it didn't work. But after I unplugged everything extra that uses PCIe from my server I got the dos prompt to show up.

I replugged all my PCIe devices again and it failed to load so I started trying one thing at a time until I could get it to break. What ultimately was causing the boot to crash was that I had a dual SD Card Module Reader installed and it had two SD cards for VMware. Once I removed the two SD cards, replugged the dual SD card module reader, and rebooted the server it sent me over to the dos prompt. I used a USB so I'll also try with idrac virtual media as well just to confirm that that one works as well.

Might want to include an extra step that any SD cards are also removed before using the custom freedos ISO.

Thanks so much for all the debugging help fohdeesha