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

[fohdeesha]

Figured it's probably best to have a dedicated thread. Pretty self explanatory, a guide to flash IT mode firmware to the H310, H710, and H810 PERC mini & full size (all variants): Introduction - Fohdeesha Docs

 

[blindive]

Following up from the other thread, trying again, and I can't boot into the FreeDOS USB anymore... It just stops with a blinking cursor after I select the boot drive. I was able to boot into FreeDOS yesterday (though I had a com32 error and had to bypass it by pressing tab and then typing in a boot option - I burned the USB with unetbootin). Any ideas?

Also the RAID card is no longer appearing in device settings in the BIOS, but I guess that's expected?

 

[fohdeesha]

Following up from the other thread, trying again, and I can't boot into the FreeDOS USB anymore... It just stops with a blinking cursor after I select the boot drive. I was able to boot into FreeDOS yesterday (though I had a com32 error and had to bypass it by pressing tab and then typing in a boot option - I burned the USB with unetbootin). Any ideas?

Also the RAID card is no longer appearing in device settings in the BIOS, but I guess that's expected?

are you sure you actually have a D1? it's starting to sound like you ran the D1 script on the B0, can you pull the card out and take a picture of the sticker on the back? Having to type up boot options just to get freedos to boot should have been the first warning something wasn't right, that shouldn't be necessary. Can you boot by mounting the ISO via idrac, or use rufus, to rule out unetbootin? Did you not see any errors when originally running the D1 script in freedos?

what server model is this? sounds like the flash drive you're using also could have corrupted something if it's getting harder and harder to boot off of. I'd skip the flash drive entirely and use idrac

 

[blindive]

It's a D1 according to this screengrab taken from FreeDOS yesterday. I haven't yet used idrac (this machine is new to me, your flashing guide was perfect timing) but will give that a try. Can't use rufus as I don't have Windows...

 

[fohdeesha]

I would update the BIOS and lifecycle/idrac firmware before doing anything if it's a new purchase

 

[blindive]

I would update the BIOS and lifecycle/idrac firmware before doing anything if it's a new purchase

Ok thanks, will start there and keep you updated.

 

[fohdeesha]

tried to use unetbootin as a sanity check, to start with it seems to not even bother erasing/formatting the USB drive? After burning the freedos ISO on a flash drive using unetbootin, I looked at the drive and old files from before burning were still there. Then after that, indeed while booting it pops up a boot menu (that shouldn't be there) that needs modification. After some searching it seems their bug tracker has a a lot of reports about this, they're not actually writing ISO images as is, seems they're overwriting any present isolinux with their own version or something. 0/10 do not recommend

 

[fohdeesha]

also if anyone needs idrac7 enterprise lic so you can use html5 remote console and mount iso virtually instead of dicking with flash drives pm me

 

[JR Hopkins]

Everything has worked for me with H710 and H710P cards. I did have to double reboot with linux twice both times. Other than that it worked great.

 

[fohdeesha]

It's looking like the kernel panic on first boot (even with a power reset to the server) is due to the onboard raid battery keeping invalid data in the card's RAM (leftover from the dell megaraid software). It's been bad enough in a couple cases it stopped users from being able to flash. Removing the battery fixed all cases. Will be adding a note to the guide to remove the battery completely as IT mode does not use it anyway

 

[DanDubi]

Just signed up to say Thank You! I found this guide today and just followed the easy step-by-step guide and successfully flashed an H710 Mini D1 with no issues / errors at all!

 

[blindive]

It's looking like the kernel panic on first boot (even with a power reset to the server) is due to the onboard raid battery keeping invalid data in the card's RAM (leftover from the dell megaraid software). It's been bad enough in a couple cases it stopped users from being able to flash. Removing the battery fixed all cases. Will be adding a note to the guide to remove the battery completely as IT mode does not use it anyway

Thanks again for your help. After unplugging the battery (which I did then leave in) and starting over it worked out

 

[johnbock]

Hi there I'm new here...

Was just looking into flashing a H710P MM, but D1-H710 script found in the Linux ISO is seemingly missing overwriting the sbr. Is that step not really necessary?

Been waiting for this work for quite some time.

Thank you very, very much!

 

[fohdeesha]

Hi there I'm new here...

Was just looking into flashing a H710P MM, but D1-H710 script found in the Linux ISO is seemingly missing overwriting the sbr. Is that step not really necessary?

Been waiting for this work for quite some time.

Thank you very, very much!

The sbr needs to be overwritten by megarec in freedos, which is exactly what the freedos script the guide tells you to run first does (as well as cleans the flash)

 

[johnbock]

The sbr needs to be overwritten by megarec in freedos, which is exactly what the freedos script the guide tells you to run first does (as well as cleans the flash)

Whoops! Somehow, I missed that part. Worked like a charm. Thanks dude ;-)

Using the supplied sbr for the H710P, I'm able to see the enclosure in iDrac on my R620. However, it's not being exposed to the OS (centOS 7.5). Do you know of a way to expose the enclosure?

 

[fohdeesha]

I have no idea, that's unrelated to the SBR. the SBR just tells the card what PCI ID values to boot the card with, to operate in IT or megaraid mode, and can store metadata like the SAS address

checking on my debian test box it seems the enclosure/backplane is not exposed via SES (scsi enclosure services), it should be showing up here:

root@r620tester:~# lsscsi -g
[0:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      INTEL SSDSC2BA40 2270  /dev/sda   /dev/sg0
[0:0:1:0]    disk    ATA      MK0400GCTZA      HPG0  /dev/sdb   /dev/sg1
[5:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      KINGSTON SV300S3 BBF0  /dev/sdd   /dev/sg4
[7:0:0:0]    disk    Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 1.00  /dev/sdc   /dev/sg2
[8:0:0:0]    cd/dvd  iDRAC    Virtual CD       0329  /dev/sr0   /dev/sg3
[8:0:0:1]    disk    iDRAC    Virtual Floppy   0329  /dev/sde   /dev/sg5

If I had to guess, the iDRAC is intercepting SES data from the backplane and it's not getting to the card when it's in IT mode, I can't think of any other reason how iDRAC would be able to still see enclosure information, when the card is running IT firmware it has no clue how to poll - iDRAC has to be talking to the backplane directly

 

[fohdeesha]

OK yeah I just checked, I have an R720 where the built in backplane is connected to a stock full size 9207-8i (this was before the H310 and h710 mini guides came out so I didn't have a choice), and even it can not poll the dell backplane, seems it just doesn't speak standard SES. guess you have to have the funky dell firmware to speak whatever it's speaking

 

[johnbock]

Interesting...

Just took a look of the innards of my R620 and R720. Both backplanes have power and other (data) cables connected to the MB.
Before converting the HBA to IT-Mode, I took a full listing of the output of MegaCli. That was reporting at least two "Settings" related to the backplane:

1. Expose Enclosure Devices : Disabled
2. Auto Detect BackPlane Enabled : SGPIO/i2c SEP

Now I'm kind of wondering where that information is stored and how/where this is being evaluated.

 

[fohdeesha]

Those are megaraid settings, can be toggled with megacli (well, perccli now):

perccli /c0 set backplane 0 (0 is autodetect using SGPIO, 1 is disabled)

perccli /c0 set exposeencldevice on

They don't apply to IT mode firmware, as IT firmware just blindly passes everything, it's not smart enough to block SES

 

[fohdeesha]

just had a look inside my r620, the backplane has the standard power and SAS, but there's indeed a third data connector with at least 8 pins running over to a BP port on the motherboard with visible traces running over to the BMC/iDRAC area - can almost guarantee it's speaking SES (or whatever it's speaking) over that, which would explain why the LSI cards I have connected to the dell backplanes via SAS can't see anything about them via SES