HD's dont show up with Flashed Dell PERC H200

[dar124]

Hello. I was referred to this site for some assistance with a Dell H200 card that I'm trying to get working for my server. I posted about this on another site and was referred here for further assistance. Working with raid cards is all new to me, so bear with me as I try to get this figured out.


Basically, I need to add a couple additional HD's to my WHS 2011 server, but I ran out of SATA ports on the motherboard. After posting in the other thread, I picked up a Dell PERC H200 6Gb/s PCI-e SAS SATA 8-Port Raid Controller SAS2008 9210-8i 47MCV card. I followed the instructions from here to flash it into IT Mode - SAS HBA crossflashing or flashing to IT mode, Dell Perc H200 and H310

Everything seemed to work fine (I think). I followed the instructions to flash the card and update the driver. The card now shows up in the BIOS / System Settings and also in Device Manager as "Dell 6Gbps SAS HBA", so that all seems good. But when I connect a HD to the card with the breakout cable the drive doesn't show up. I can hear / feel it spinning, but it dosent show up in Disk Management. I initially had a reverse cable, but have since purchased http://www.amazon.com/CableCreation...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00 So I think that I now have the correct cable.

So here I am, looking for some additional info to try to get this working. This is the first time that I've tried to flash a Raid Card. Is there a way to verify that it is flashed correctly?? Or some additional steps that I need to do to get this working??

Thanks in advance help with this.

 

[atmarosi]

You will need to enter the BIOS or ROM of the PERC Card in order to tell it what to do with the drives connected to it. The card controls how the drives attached to it are exposed to the OS

 

[rubylaser]

In IT mode the disks should show up without going into the OptionROM (in fact, with IT mode, you might as well remove the rombios as it will speedup the boot process). You definitely did not want a reverse breakout cable as you had at first. Those are for converting 4 SATA ports into an 8087 cable. You want a forward breakout cable. What you bought appears to be a forward cable, but I've never used that brand before.

 

[dar124]

In IT mode the disks should show up without going into the OptionROM (in fact, with IT mode, you might as well remove the rombios as it will speedup the boot process). You definitely did not want a reverse breakout cable as you had at first. Those are for converting 4 SATA ports into an 8087 cable. You want a forward breakout cable. What you bought appears to be a forward cable, but I've never used that brand before.

I first bought the reverse cable, and when I figured out it was the wrong one I bought this forward one - CBL-SFF8087OCF-SAS to Serial ATA Breakout Cable - 0.5M But the drives didn't show up. Figured the cable was bad, so I bought the one I linked above - Amazon.com: CableCreation Mini SAS 36Pin (SFF-8087) Male to 4 SATA 7Pin female Cable, Mini SAS Host/Controller to 4 SATA Target/Backplane, 0.5M: Computers & Accessories And I still had the same issues.

So is there chance that the card isn't flashed correctly?? I'm 95% sure I followed the instructions correctly, but there's a chance that I missed something along the way. During a bit of Googling today I read about certain versions of the LSI firmware that don't work quite right or weren't tested thoroughly. I'm pretty sure that I have "P16" firmware. Should I have a better / different version??

I'm thinking that I might try to re-flash the card. But don't want to mess things up more.

 

[whitey]

P19/P20 versions are desirable.

 

[dar124]

P19/P20 versions are desirable.

Is there a good download link for the P19 or P20 firmware??

And is it as simple as swapping the P19/P20 file w. the P16 file on the flash drive I used and then re-flashing the card??

 

[whitey]

If memory serves me correct the process for flashing a H200 is identical to a H310 (or damn similar).

Follow these threads, I do not have it in me to re-type it all today, no more groundhog days for me :-D (ALL info is within, I'd offer up files but I've been advised they are garbage recently even though many have used them successfully in the past so YMMV heh /rib @T_Minus)

Bit the bullet on a H310
LSI SAS 2008 flash update stuck
Flash a Dell H310 with Dell HBA or LSI firmware?
LSI 9211-8I IT mode stuck during loading

 

[dar124]

Thanks whitey, I'm in the process of looking thru those links. So much info out there, a lot of it seems to overlap. Just want to make sure that I've got the steps down correctly, etc.


Question as I'm looking thru these. I'll download the "9211_8i_Package_P20_IR_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows.zip" file to get the P20 firmware and put it on a bootable flash drive. In one of your posts "pasted below" you said to flash it to v7 and then to v19. Will / should I first flash to v7 and then to the v20??

If so is there a separate download for the v7 firmware?? Or would the v7 somehow be included in with the v20 that I download??


1. megacli -AdpAllInfo -aAll -page 20 (document sas address)
2. megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
3. megerec -cleanflash 0
4. reboot
5. sas2flsh -o -f 6GBSSAS.FW
6. sas2flsh -o -sasadd 5d4aXXXXXXXXXXXX (16 digit sas address)
7. reboot
8. sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin (I used v7 first which allows IR <-> IT crossflashing, will ask to crossflash, type Y to proceed)
9. reboot
10. sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin (v19 of the LSI FW this time)
11. Validate w/ sas2flsh -list (should be in IT mode at v19 of LSI FW)


Thanks again for your assistance.

 

[whitey]

P7 first then P20, P7 firmware 'may' be archived out on avago/LSi site, I have it if you need it, the guy's bundle off techmatter also has it as well as the Dell 6Gbpsfw. You will need to wipe card, that to 6Gbps, then v7, then v20 w/ reboots in between.

 

[dar124]

Excellent. I'll give it a go this weekend and post back.

Thanks again!!!

 

[dar124]

I worked on this over the past couple of days. It took me a bit to first get the P20 firmware and then also to get the "sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin" command to run the P20 instead of re-running the P7. But after some trial and error and then some more trial and error, I got the card updated to P20 (pic below)!!!

After getting the firmware updated , I connected the breakout cable and hard drive again but the drive still doesn't show up in Disk Management. I can hear / feel it spinning (like before), but it dosent show up. I also tried the 2nd forward cable that I have to make sure that I wasnt using a bad cable.

Is there another step that I'm missing when connecting a drive to the card??

 

[cw823]

Are you using a drive > 2Tb?

 

[whitey]

Do you have other known validated/working drives to test or did you say earlier in thread you had tested on another OS or it was possibly detected some other way. The ?? after 'Adapter Selected' does look a bit odd...used to seeing B2 there, also not seeing the (IT) mode like this but maybe that's just a diff FW revision/file or anomaly w/ v5 sas2flsh. You did use 2118IT.bin right?

 

[Terry Kennedy]

The ?? after 'Adapter Selected' does look a bit odd...used to seeing B2 there, also not seeing the (IT) mode like this but maybe that's just a diff FW revision/file or anomaly w/ v5 sas2flsh

The poster's capture is of SAS2Flash V5. It is too old to know about chip revision B2.

 

[dar124]

Are you using a drive > 2Tb?

The drive was a 400GB and I also tried another 160GB drive that was laying around.

 

[dar124]

Do you have other known validated/working drives to test or did you say earlier in thread you had tested on another OS or it was possibly detected some other way.

I'm 95% sure that both drives that I tested with are functional. This evening I'll try them out with my laptop via a USB/SATA cable and make sure that they show up in the laptop.

The ?? after 'Adapter Selected' does look a bit odd...used to seeing B2 there, also not seeing the (IT) mode like this but maybe that's just a diff FW revision/file or anomaly w/ v5 sas2flsh.

I saw Terry's post about my version of SAS2Flash being an older version. That makes sense, but is it an issue that the (IT) doesn't show up after the 0x2213??

Should I try to get an updated version of SAS2Flash and check with it??

You did use 2118IT.bin right?

Yep, I used the 2118it.bin file for the v20 firmware.




I feel like I'm close to getting this working. Would it be worth starting completely over and trying to flash it again?? Maybe this time with an updated version of SAS2Flash??

 

[Twist]

I also had the ?? after flashing my H310 to Lsi. I reflashed several times and also used another sas address to see if it got better.

Last time I flashed I'm sure I did not flash direct to lastest fw but did it in several steps 10,12 to 14 and 19 and so on.

 

[rubylaser]

I'm 95% sure that both drives that I tested with are functional. This evening I'll try them out with my laptop via a USB/SATA cable and make sure that they show up in the laptop.




I saw Terry's post about my version of SAS2Flash being an older version. That makes sense, but is it an issue that the (IT) doesn't show up after the 0x2213??

Should I try to get an updated version of SAS2Flash and check with it??




Yep, I used the 2118it.bin file for the v20 firmware.




I feel like I'm close to getting this working. Would it be worth starting completely over and trying to flash it again?? Maybe this time with an updated version of SAS2Flash??

Could you download a live Linux Desktop CD like Ubuntu and boot from it? Use the "Try Ubuntu" option to boot without doing anything to your current system. Then see if you can see the attached disks using the "Disks" tool.

 

[dar124]

Ok, I checked for the disk using Ubuntu and it dosent appear their either??

The 1TB drive is the PC's HD.
The CD/DVD drive.
The 1GB drive is the drive that I was using to flash the card.
And not sure about the 1GB Loop Device??

But I also had a 160GB HD connected to the H200 card.


So any other suggestions at this point??

 

[pricklypunter]

Open a shell on your live linux and type sudo lsblk, see what shows up there. Confirm that the disks are definitely not being passed to the OS. Your issue can really only be one of three things, a bad card, bad IT mode flash or bad cable. Whatever else you do, don't mix and match firmware and flash tools. Obtain the whole package and use the flash tools in that package to flash the card with the firmware in that package. If you try another package, use that flash tool etc