Help with LSI card in HP server, not reading disks

[pomtom44]

HI all.
Firstly, sorry for the long post, I have tried a few things and want to put it all down so I dont loose track myself of what I have already tried.

I have a older HP server with 12 drive bays which I have been running for the past few years as my home NAS.
I have been running windows on it
A) As when I set it up, windows was all I really knew,
B) It supported mixed drives using the windows storage spaces
C) It ran my backblaze software so I could backup the entire NAS to backblaze

I decided I wanted to move away from windows and go unraid, but I knew the HP raid card I had didnt support IT mode,
So I got a LSI 9211-8i, Put it in the server and confirmed it showed up in bios, and sold the HP raid card as I didn't think I needed it any more
It sat in the server for a while turned off as I didn't have the time to setup unraid on it, till a few days ago.

Finally put unraid on and found that none of my drives were showing up.
Attached a drive to the onboard sata and it showed up fine.
I then went to upgrade the firmware on the card and it complained about putting IT mode over IR mode (or whatever the other mode is, sorry cant remember at the moment)
So I found instructions on how to make a dos usb and flash it that way
I flashed it to 20.07 but still nothing in unraid.
So more reading online said you can boot to the bios of the card and use that to configure it, but when I went to boot into that, I got a PCI error

Fatal PCI Express Device Error PCI Slot ?
B00/D07/F00 0E

I then went back to version 19 of the firmware, and it booted fine into the bios,
But in there under the SAS Topology page where I expected the drives to show, it said no devices to display.
I tried swapping the PCI port, swapping the SAS cable around, and putting it in slot 1 and 2
cleaned the servers bios to be safe
One time I did get it to show HP expander something (cant remember and didnt take a photo) but only once

I went to upgrade to version 20.06 on the firmware to see if that helped, but that still got the same PCI error (Although a different error code)
B00/D03/F00 0E
(not sure if thats to do with changing ports etc?)

I did notice that during post, firmware 19 showed LSI but 20 showed Avago, not sure if thats relevant

At this point im not sure where to go forward.
I know the cable and HP backplane worked fine with the old HP card

I dont know if its a problem with my LSI card, or a compatibility problem between the LSI card and HP backplane.

I would buy a SAS breakout cable to test the LSI card, but they arn't cheap where im from, and it would take a few days to get here, so hoping to exaust all other options before going fown that path.

I do have photos of everything if anyone is interested
and can take more on request
Or can provide any debug or version numbers, I just dont know what is needed to help troubleshoot so didnt want to dump everything on here

Thanks in advance for an help

 

[bonox]

the pin 5/6 trick might help you with this one. I had a similar issue with getting a dell H810 working in an HPE box with pretty much the same error.

As for firmware version titles, they've had a whole host of owners in the past - the new owner changes their name in the firmware, but the underlying gear is still the original LSI design.

 

[bonox]

otherwise, put the card in something else - any PC would do, and flash from there before moving to the server.

 

[pomtom44]

the pin 5/6 trick might help you with this one. I had a similar issue with getting a dell H810 working in an HPE box with pretty much the same error.

As for firmware version titles, they've had a whole host of owners in the past - the new owner changes their name in the firmware, but the underlying gear is still the original LSI design.

So I did the tape thing, and this time I got a bunch of lights from the backplane on first boot, which I dont remember getting before, but nothing showing in the cards bios as attached.
and then on a reboot there wasn't the lights again so not sure what that was

otherwise, put the card in something else - any PC would do, and flash from there before moving to the server.

Flashing the firmware isnt the problem (although booting into bios on the newer firmware does have problems)
I have a feeling the card may be dead. or at least not liking the backplane.

 

[bonox]

Sorry i can't help. I've only seen that PCI error when trying to get into the card configuration utility. If you don't boot from it does it work fine?

Perhaps try Truenas installed on a USB stick if you don't have any spare real drives/ports available. If it does, i'd suggest the bootloader part of the flash failed. I think from memory there is a firmware update and the bootloader update as separate activities - you can leave the bootloader off if you want faster boot times on an IT mode HBA, so perhaps recheck that part of the process. Also check that you have only pins 5/6 covered on the B side, not the A side (it's only one side of the card btw).

Else, there's a heap of stuff here to work through that may or may not help

Good luck.

 

[pomtom44]

Sorry i can't help. I've only seen that PCI error when trying to get into the card configuration utility. If you don't boot from it does it work fine?

Perhaps try Truenas installed on a USB stick if you don't have any spare real drives/ports available. If it does, i'd suggest the bootloader part of the flash failed. I think from memory there is a firmware update and the bootloader update as separate activities - you can leave the bootloader off if you want faster boot times on an IT mode HBA, so perhaps recheck that part of the process. Also check that you have only pins 5/6 covered (it's only one side of the card.

Else, there's a heap of stuff here to work through that may or may not help

Good luck.

The system boots fine into unraid, and the unraid logs shows the card being detected.
Im not entirely sure where the problem is, its either the card, the cable, or the backplane.
I dont think its the cable or backplane as they were working fine on my old HP raid card.

Ill try the v ideo and see if it has anything useful, but I may just need to buy a few tings to use to test
breakout cable, or replacement card

 

[pomtom44]

Update

Got my hands on a breakout sable, and it is detecting the drive just fine on the LSI card
Next step to assume is either backplane or cable is broken
or the backplane isnt supported.

 

[nabsltd]

Got my hands on a breakout sable

This creates an odd mental picture: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/c...8/Sable.png/revision/latest?cb=20161118224952

I guess the tail the "breakout" part...?