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

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fourlynx

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Aug 15, 2018
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Just one thing is changed, after the flash the led on the hdd tray are all off, is there a way to have the led work again? Did this happened to anyone?
You should still get the activity led to flicker on disk activity. The health led will not work as the IT-mode firmware doesn't know how to drive it.
 
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JackAss

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Mar 24, 2020
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Hi fourlynx,
thanks for your reply, yes I checked yesterday and the disk activity led are working, I would have liked also the health led (I think one of the disk have problem...) but the more I'm studying the IR-IT mode difference and more I understand how those thing work (I'm starting my home lab so I'm learning a lot reading here and from every tutorial I can find on internet!

BTW I flashed the H710 with IT-mode firmware without flashing the BIOS, and (I suppose it is expected...) the iDRAC does not see anymore the card (every voice state "RAC0503: There are no out-of-band capable controllers to be displayed", I would like, if possible, to at least see the card in the iDRAC, could flashing the BIOS help with this? (I'm asking beacusa I saw on youtube a video of a H310 flashed with IT firmware that was showing in iDRAC...)
 

fourlynx

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Aug 15, 2018
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If you have not flashed the bootrom, you should simply not have any prompt during bootup. Having the bootrom installed can add several minutes to the startup time as every drive needs to be spun up and read.

Bootrom presence is unrelated to the presence of the card in the iDRAC web panel. The LSI firmware doesn't know it needs to talk to the iDRAC, only the stock Dell firmware does. It is therefore normal to not have OOB channels when using an H710 in IT mode.
 

JackAss

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Mar 24, 2020
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Thank you, yes I don't need to boot from the H710 so I did not flashed the BIOS and now that I had some time to test I saw that I can pass the hdd connected to the H710 directly to the VM in VMWare ESXi, they are seen directly from the VM and the SMART status can be seen inside the VM, this is what I need the most as I will need to pass only some disk to one VM (not the entire card with all the disk connected) that will act as NAS and the other disks will be user in other VM.

Since the SMART data are available within the VM I can probably ignore the unavailability of the status led...

I was curious about the controller not being seen in the iDRAC, I was expecting not having all the functionality available but I don't see the reason why it could be not recognised as a "generic" HBA/RAID controller, probably some dell choice but it is just my curiosity!

Thank you again for the information and your time!!!
 

J3ffery

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Aug 12, 2018
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So, I searched but didnt see anything, I hope I didnt miss anything. I'm planning to use this H710 pcie (D1) controller with a home-built server. I found this tutorial and so far its working great and very much appreciated. I was able to use the freedos image for the initial step(s) and it worked perfectly. The problem is that I cannot get Debian Live to boot from any of the PC hardware I have. I've tried an Intel chipset motherboard, an AMD chipset/motherboard. It gets to the boot selection screen and I've tried Live and Live (failsafe) options but none of the platforms or options will completed the boot into Debian Live. Are there specific host requirements which I'm missing?
 

fohdeesha

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Nov 20, 2016
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Are there specific host requirements which I'm missing?
Nope, it's basically a bone stock debian live ISO. What tool did you use to write the ISO with? Try Rufus if you're not, if you already used rufus try something else like etcher or unetbootin

when you say it doesn't boot, what output do you actually get? what's the error? The fact it won't boot on *any* hardware you try tells me something went wrong when you burnt the image
 

J3ffery

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Aug 12, 2018
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Nope, it's basically a bone stock debian live ISO. What tool did you use to write the ISO with? Try Rufus if you're not, if you already used rufus try something else like etcher or unetbootin

when you say it doesn't boot, what output do you actually get? what's the error? The fact it won't boot on *any* hardware you try tells me something went wrong when you burnt the image
Tried it again today and it worked. Was able to program and setsas. Worked great. Thank you so much for this!
 
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J3ffery

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Aug 12, 2018
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If I wanted to go back to use hardware raid on this adapter, is there an RT mode firmware I could flash other than the HP version? I find the HP raid tools cumbersome and last I tried required some proprietary software utilities to configure completely. I'd like somethign that can just be ran from the BIOS - and run something like raid 10.
 

fourlynx

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Aug 15, 2018
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You can check for the LSI model your HP-branded card is based on on the LSI-now-broadcom website. If it supports an IR mode, you could try to flash that.
 

zyxnl

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Apr 25, 2020
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Thanks for this, worked like a charm on my H710 mini.
Altough not explicitly mentioned in the documentation i was only able to follow the procedure when i booted the server in BIOS mode as opposed to UEFI mode. Don't know if that is expected behaviour, but if it is it might be worth mentioning in the docs.
 

Twist

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Oct 15, 2015
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My card displays an id of 'Perc H710P' rev 'B0' and is not listed in your guide - this card is Dell Precision H710P '0V9RNC'

Could I flash my card following your H710 Full Size (B0) guide even if my adapter is an H710P B0 ?

H710P.jpg
H710P 0V9RNC.jpg
 

Twist

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Oct 15, 2015
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Perfect, if you also need to have a look at the sbr or spd from this card I sent you a mail some days ago.
 

dlowe

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May 3, 2020
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I am working on flashing my "h710 D1 mini" on my R720 but get error code 524288 when attempting to run D1CROSS. What does this code mean and is there a way to fix it and progress?
1.jpg
 

fohdeesha

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reboot the server without continuing and try running d1 cross again. make sure you have the battery unplugged from the controller, and remove power from the server for like 20 seconds or so before trying again
 

kousuke

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Jul 18, 2017
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I'm wondering if it is possible to flash mini H730p to IT mode as well?

Or I have to live with non-raid mode for pass-through
 

Örs Darabont

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May 12, 2020
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Hi all,

@fohdeesha Thank you so much for this guide. It's a clear, no brainer guide. Worked like a charm the first time without any kernel panic or anything else, really. The IT mode of the H710 mini in my R720 was the missing link to my dream setup. Thank you very much for your work. People doing low level firmware work are very scarce these days.

Is there a way to support your work? Do you accept any kind of contributions?