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

[danie1k]

It turned out that my suspicions that it was me messing up with BIOS settings were correct. I just disabled RAID Controller completely at some point, trying to run flashed controller, which was probably just incorrectly flashed. I should probably reflash the card again, in the first place, rather than playing with server's BIOS.
After changing BIOS settings the controller still didn't show up during boot, but at least I was able to run PD1REVRT and bring back stock firmware.
I'll stick with Dell firmware for some time, before I'll try to reflash to IT mode again.

Thank you @fohdeesha for your support!

 

[danie1k]

Next weekend, but similar problems. But maybe I'm missing something?

My card is PERC H710P Mini D1 (0TY8F9) in Dell r720.

Here is where I'm currently at:

• Card flashing went smoothly, everything according to the Docs.
• After rebooting after the last step, card didn't show up during boot:
  

  http://imgur.com/a/rmHFsvJ

• But it is showing up in Debian's info & lspci on Unraid:

  http://imgur.com/a/nYSjhIB

• I have one HDD connected, but cannot access it at all and any of it's LED are flashing.

My first question is: should card's BIOS show up during server boot? - This information is unclear, and I found conflicting information about this in this thread.

I also tried to plug off the power cords, wait for a few minutes and boot up server again - still no progress.

Before I go back to this "revert-flash-reboot" trial and error loop - is there anything else I can do? Or just reflash, reflash, reflash... Until I get it working?

PS.
Are the following errors a normal thing during linux part of flashing?

rmmod: ERROR: Module megaraid_sas is not currently loaded
rmmod: ERROR: Module mptctl is not currently loaded
rmmod: ERROR: Module mptbase is not currently loaded
Errors above are normal!

 

[KCserve]

I suspect you have flashed both the BIOS and UEFI version of the boot loader?

Certain cards will only work with just 1 of the boot loaders flashed.

to test this you should redo your flash and pick one and only one boot loader for your correct system configuration and see.

Perhaps a warning about this should be mentioned in the documentation @fohdeesha ?

Next weekend, but similar problems. But maybe I'm missing something?

My card is PERC H710P Mini D1 (0TY8F9) in Dell r720.

Here is where I'm currently at:

• Card flashing went smoothly, everything according to the Docs.
• After rebooting after the last step, card didn't show up during boot:
  

  http://imgur.com/a/rmHFsvJ

• But it is showing up in Debian's info & lspci on Unraid:

  http://imgur.com/a/nYSjhIB

• I have one HDD connected, but cannot access it at all and any of it's LED are flashing.

My first question is: should card's BIOS show up during server boot? - This information is unclear, and I found conflicting information about this in this thread.

I also tried to plug off the power cords, wait for a few minutes and boot up server again - still no progress.

Before I go back to this "revert-flash-reboot" trial and error loop - is there anything else I can do? Or just reflash, reflash, reflash... Until I get it working?

PS.
Are the following errors a normal thing during linux part of flashing?

rmmod: ERROR: Module megaraid_sas is not currently loaded
rmmod: ERROR: Module mptctl is not currently loaded
rmmod: ERROR: Module mptbase is not currently loaded
Errors above are normal!

 

[danie1k]

Thanks @KCserve for the suggestion. But I don't quite understand it, there is almost no user input in flashing tutorial - by flashing "BIOS or UEFI", you mean the way I boot up the server? - I'm using only the BIOS Boot Mode all the time. And always manually choosing boot device with F11.

 

[KCserve]

I mean flashing a boot image onto the card so it can be used for booting - otherwise it is usable only for data access after boot.

As Documented in fohdeesha's excellent guide after the reprogramming the SAS address section.

Optional: Boot Images

Note: flashing these can add up to 2 minutes to server boot time if you have a lot of drives. Be sure you need them!

If you need to boot from drives connected to this adapter, you'll need to flash a boot image to it. Otherwise, skip it. This is what gives you the "press blahblah to enter the LSI boot configuration utility" text when the server boots. To flash the regular BIOS boot image:

flashboot /root/Bootloaders/mptsas2.rom

If you want to UEFI boot from drives connected to this adapter, you need to flash the UEFI boot image (the card can have both UEFI and BIOS boot images flashed):

flashboot /root/Bootloaders/x64sas2.rom

You can now ditch the live images and boot back into your normal system.

Thanks @KCserve for the suggestion. But I don't quite understand it - by flashing "BIOS or UEFI", you mean the way I boot up the server? - I'm using only the BIOS Boot Mode all the time. And always manually choosing boot device with F11.

 

[danie1k]

I mean flashing a boot image onto the card so it can be used for booting - otherwise it is usable only for data access after boot.

It's totally fine with me, and even expected - I haven't flashed Boot Images at all, because I want to boot up the server from USB stick only.

 

[danie1k]

Something just hit my mind... So hard! - I just need to install a dedicated drivers, am I right?
I assumed that it will just work, as the most things in GNU/Linux, nowadays; that the drivers are in kernel or delivered by default by OS vendor.

 

[fohdeesha]

you won't see the card during boot, unless you install one (or both) of the boot images. if you don't need to boot off drives connected to the card, you don't need them and don't need to see the card during boot

if you can see the card in lspci, it should indeed "just work". When you say you can't see a connected drive, how are you looking? Is it partitioned, mounted, etc? if not, most OS's will not magically do this for you. you can check a list of hard drives on the system by running "lsblk" - as your own lspci dump shows, the card has been flashed and detected succesfully, any issues you have now are OS/hardware/etc related

 

[Lix]

Just flashed a H710 D1 in a Dell R720 using your setup @fohdeesha, it worked great. Thx

"New device detected: SAS9207-8i(Integrated 1-1)"

 

[morosis]

I'm trying to use this guide but the freedos image won't boot for me. Running an R720 with H710 mini of some description, battery removed, set to BIOS boot mode. Have tried a couple of USB keys, both of which will boot the debian image, but when I try to run the freedos one it seemingly just hangs.

I have previously (to test it worked before flashing) installed proxmox and zfs'd all the disks and written data to them, so I'm pretty sure everything works correctly.

I've also booted the freedos image usb from 2 of my other computers, both intel based.

Any ideas where to go from here? It seems the freedos one is only required for the very first step, any potential alternative?

Thanks for any help you can render.

 

[fohdeesha]

I'm trying to use this guide but the freedos image won't boot for me. Running an R720 with H710 mini of some description, battery removed, set to BIOS boot mode. Have tried a couple of USB keys, both of which will boot the debian image, but when I try to run the freedos one it seemingly just hangs.

I have previously (to test it worked before flashing) installed proxmox and zfs'd all the disks and written data to them, so I'm pretty sure everything works correctly.

I've also booted the freedos image usb from 2 of my other computers, both intel based.

Any ideas where to go from here? It seems the freedos one is only required for the very first step, any potential alternative?

Thanks for any help you can render.

were you using the front USB ports? try putting the usb key in one of the rear USB ports. Also, make sure you burnt the usb img with something like rufus. Lastly you can just boot it via idrac virtual media instead of burning it

 

[Micgo]

Hello all here =D

i have used your guide and searched on many forum. i can confirm H310 mini guide will not work with H310 Full card. Can u add H310 Full card to your Dell Perc Flashing ZIP pack please =D i m sure many of us can use it

since the full size card goes in a regular pci-e slot, the server doesn't look for any special vendor IDs and you can't really brick it by flashing the wrong SBR vendor IDs (the server will still boot). You could go ahead and just try following the h310 mini guide. @fourlynx might know more

 

[Lix]

I'm trying to use this guide but the freedos image won't boot for me. Running an R720 with H710 mini of some description, battery removed, set to BIOS boot mode. Have tried a couple of USB keys, both of which will boot the debian image, but when I try to run the freedos one it seemingly just hangs.

I have previously (to test it worked before flashing) installed proxmox and zfs'd all the disks and written data to them, so I'm pretty sure everything works correctly.

I've also booted the freedos image usb from 2 of my other computers, both intel based.

Any ideas where to go from here? It seems the freedos one is only required for the very first step, any potential alternative?

Thanks for any help you can render.

What i did:

1. Ran the lastet https://dl.dell.com/FOLDER06623957M/1/PER720_BOOTABLE_20.10.00.172.iso
2. Reset the BIOS, iDrac and cleared RAID-config
3. I did not remove the battery (Was feeling lucky )
4. Used iDrac to mount the iso-files
5. Followed the guide by fohdeesha

 

[morosis]

I found a link to an ISO that allowed me to install the trial enterprise iDRAC license, then proceeded over the virtual console with virtual media. I'm wondering if my issue was related to me using an active VGA -> HDMI adapter as I have no monitor with a VGA plug. I should still have been able to see the output, but it wouldn't come up. I didn't have a problem with the debian boot iso from USB, TrueCore NAS, Proxmox, etc. but it did not seem to work for the freedos boot. Weird.

I might have to see if I can get myself a cheap basic console as I plan to get another couple of this class of machine and this was not worth the pain over simply buying a cheap console that will avoid the issue. Either that or I guess the iDRAC license.

Thanks for your help everyone.

 

[fohdeesha]

I found a link to an ISO that allowed me to install the trial enterprise iDRAC license, then proceeded over the virtual console with virtual media. I'm wondering if my issue was related to me using an active VGA -> HDMI adapter as I have no monitor with a VGA plug. I should still have been able to see the output, but it wouldn't come up. I didn't have a problem with the debian boot iso from USB, TrueCore NAS, Proxmox, etc. but it did not seem to work for the freedos boot. Weird.

I might have to see if I can get myself a cheap basic console as I plan to get another couple of this class of machine and this was not worth the pain over simply buying a cheap console that will avoid the issue. Either that or I guess the iDRAC license.

Thanks for your help everyone.

that makes a lot of sense - all the ISOs you listed put out at least 800x600 or more, while the freedos ISO barely does 640x480 if I remember right, the active adapter probably didn't like the oddball low res. I'll pm you an idrac license

 

[morosis]

that makes a lot of sense - all the ISOs you listed put out at least 800x600 or more, while the freedos ISO barely does 640x480 if I remember right, the active adapter probably didn't like the oddball low res. I'll pm you an idrac license

That's probably it. I might have to get a basic console set up when I get a rack, but it's going to have to be ghetto for now as I've already spent all my holiday presents for self money on servers and drives

Now that I've got past that everythings peachy, drives show up, I get SMART data, passed through proxmox and everything is working fine. Thanks again for the help, and the license!

 

[fahadshery]

Hi,

Just logged into say massive thank you to @fohdeesha for creating a n00b proof guide for flashing H310 mini. I followed your guide. It failed the first time for whatever reason, but then had to reboot and try again and all went great!

Massive thank you for your help and efforts!

Cheers,

 

[fahadshery]

Hi again @fohdeesha

Just rebooted the system and went into the system settings (BIOS F2). when I open up the Device Settings. I can no longer see my controller. Is this normal? How do I see if it's really in the IT mode and make sure all my drives are not in raid mode.

However, in the OS it shows fine I guess:


Cheers,

 

[fahadshery]

ok, even though it doesnt show up at the startup anymore... its working fine... cheers

 

[fohdeesha]

ok, even though it doesnt show up at the startup anymore... its working fine... cheers

you flashed it to plain LSI firmware, it will no longer show up in dell-specific bios/device menus because it's no longer a dell part, it's just a dumb LSI disk adapter (as you can see in lspci)