Is there a way to restore an LSI 2208 after firmware update failure?

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serverian

New Member
Mar 24, 2013
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I have a Supermicro SMC2008 on a system and I've tried to update the firmware of it and after 1.5 hours of no progress and a ton of kernel error messages, it has failed.

Now when I boot all I see is these messages:

RAID Adapter
Firmware Failed Validation!!!
Adapter needs to be reflashed.
Press Any Key to continue...

I was wondering if there's any way to reflash this without sending the motherboard to Supermicro.
 
Last edited:
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serverian

New Member
Mar 24, 2013
22
15
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So, after hours of trial and failure, I was able to restore this.

I want no one else to suffer the pain. Here's the step-by-step guide on how to fix this:

1. Download the iso file I've created here: Dropbox - lsi2208fixer.zip
2. Boot your server with it, either via the Virtual Disk feature of the IPMI or write it to a CD.
3. Your server will boot to a FreeDos environment.
4. Change dir to LSI_DOS:
Code: 
cd LSI_DOS
5. Find out the card's index number: (In my case, it was 0 since there was only one card on the server)
Code: 
megarec -adplist
6. Clear the flash of the card:
Code: 
megarec -cleanflash 0
7. Reboot the server via CTRL+ALT+DEL
8. Boot the server with the ISO again
9. Change dir to LSI_DOS:
Code: 
cd LSI_DOS
10. Flash the card with LSI's recovery rom (mode0)
Code: 
megarec -m0flash 0 2208_16.rom
11. After around 5 minutes, it will return Success, Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/J9e5OmX.png
12. Reboot the server and the problem should be solved.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's what I went through trying to resolve this:

- I've tried to flash numerous firmwares (Supermicro's, LSI's, Dell's) using megarec, megacli, storcli, sas2flash, etc. None of them worked.

- I've copied the SDR and SPD files from another card (same SMC2208) and wrote them to the bricked card.

- After using the megarec first time with the latest LSI's firmware, the boot error has changed to this:

Code: 
F/W is in fault state - MFI Register State 0xF0010002

Adapter at Baseport is not responding
No MegaRAID Adapter Installed
- Then after extreme Google'ing, I've found out that there is a recovery ROM for 2208 based chips distributed by LSI. The 2208_16.rom inside the ISO is exactly this ROM which has resolved the issue.

At this point, I'm pretty sure this would resolve the same issue for other 2208 based controllers such as:

MegaRAID SAS 9265-8i
MegaRAID SAS 9266-4i
MegaRAID SAS 9266-8i
MegaRAID SAS 9285-8e
MegaRAID SAS 9285CV-8e
MegaRAID SAS 9270-8i
MegaRAID SAS 9271-4i
MegaRAID SAS 9271-8i
MegaRAID SAS 9271-8iCC
MegaRAID SAS 9286-8e
MegaRAID SAS 9286CV-8e
MegaRAID SAS 9286CV-8eCC
Supermicro SMC2208
IBM ServeRAID M5016
IBM ServeRAID M5110
IBM ServeRAID M5115
IBM ServeRAID M5120
Dell H710
Dell H710P

P.S: The ISO file has some other utilities such as LSIUTIL, MEGAOEM, MEGASCU, MEGAREC, SAS2FLSH (This wouldn't work with 2208 based chips, you'd need to use the SAS2FLASH.EFI instead on an EFI shell)
 
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GlennT

New Member
Mar 6, 2017
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I owe you beer(s) Serverian!!! Your img file saved our server from basically being bricked.
I was replacing the BBU on our Supermicro and flashed SuperMicro's latest LSI2208 firmware.
My first mistake was using "MegaRAID Storage Manager" Gui to update the firmware. It claimed success and reboot required.
On reboot I was greeted with:

RAID Adapter
Firmware Failed Validation!!!
Adapter needs to be reflashed.
Press Any Key to continue...

What a bad feeling.

Your lsi2208fixer.zip saved the day!

Thankyou

Glenn
 
V

vabch22

New Member
Aug 8, 2016
27
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@serverian - Thanks so much. Every time I update firmware I always have that 'what if' in the back of my mind even with backups. Great info!
 
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dawncold

New Member
May 3, 2017
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0
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I register STH for giving my thanks to @serverian .

I'm upgrading Dell R720 RAID card with latest firmware, it takes too much time, it should be done within 5 mins, but it has taken almost 1 hour, so I make a cold reboot, the RAID card doesn't work, the error message just like yours.

I clean firmware and reflash 2208_16.rom, it works but that's not Dell original firmware, the RAID card can't recognize my RAID configuration, so I just clean firmware again and reflash Dell original firmware, it works!!!

Extract original firmware method: unzip upgrade file(Exe version, downloaded via dell support website), the firmware is placed under `payload` folder, I make a new iso file with latest Dell RADI H710P firmware. Dropbox - lsi2208fixer-with-h710P-rom.tar.gz

you can flash with it
Code: 
megarec -m0flash 0 FW8147PM.rom
 
R

Richard Wad

Member
Feb 7, 2017
39
8
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I'm sure the cause of my issue is similar. But I have no way of resetting the card. And I cannot get past this notification.
The card I have is an LSI 9260-4i. I've tried multiple systems. I still get the following message

"Discovery error has occured, please powercycle the system and all the enclosures attached to this system."

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Megaraid SAS-MFI Bios
Version 3.09.00 (Build August 27, 2009)
 
D

Dipsier

New Member
Mar 30, 2021
8
2
3
Even though this did not directly solve my issue (I could not flash the firmware after cleaning) it greatly helped to have the megarec and other tools available in an ISO to troubleshoot my issue.
Thanks!
 
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