LSI 9340-8i - Chip is in RESET state. Attempting Host Boot...

[evgeny.magata]

Hey People,

i bought a 2nd hand LSI controller, it has a little sticker that says SAS9340-8i on it - although the seller had advertised it as a ServeRAID M1215 - but there is no single mention of IBM on it. In any case, i want to flash it to IT Mode for use as a ZFS controller.

I followed the instructions here, only using a DOS based sas3flsh.exe since i dont have an EFI system available:

https://www.servethehome.com/flash-lsi-sas-3008-hba-e-g-ibm-m1215-mode/

but they dont work for me, it always ends at:

Chip is in RESET state. Attempting Host Boot...
ERROR: Firmware Host Boot Failed!

No idea what this means, but more importantly how to overcome this message.
I also tried to precede the flashing with
megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
megarec -cleanflash 0

which both seemed to have completed succesfully and without errors but didnt change the outcome of the actual firmware flashing.
since i am out of ideas now, anyone got a tip what else i could try?

Thanks.
e.

p.s. adding screenshot

 

[Sean Ho]

Tried Sleyk's writeup?

 

[evgeny.magata]

Thanks for the reply, yes i saw the post. Is there a specific part of the thread you are referring to? From what i gather, it just states that Vendor Crossflshing is possible, which is great but the "usual" way doesnt seem to work here.

The problem with my controller is that it seems to behave differently than the usual M1215, so all the tutorials i can find online seem to fail and i cannot find anyone who has the same problem. supposedly, the cross-flashing is straightforward with this one but not for me

I dont really understand what to try next here...
@Sleyk can i maybe pick your brain about what to try?

 

[mindio]

Hi @evgeny.magata,

Did you find a way to flash your card? I have exact problem with my LSI 9300-8i card. I tried @Sleyk insrtructions as well, same result.



It is recognized by sas3flsh, but could not be flashed, tried with jumper on and off.

 

[evgeny.magata]

Hey,

first of all, don't worry it's not broken.

Since my original post the controller was sitting on the shelf but some weeks ago I started building a new home server and reactivated it, successfully. Unfortunately I didn't document the steps but as far as I remember: i booted the "official" LSI Pre Boot disk and ran the process for the 3008 series recovery.

From here

LSI Pre-Boot USB tool Download

LSI Pre-Boot USB tool Download

www.broadcom.com

Using a ventoy prepared USB memory

Ventoy

Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO files. With ventoy, you don't need to format the disk again and again, you just need to copy the iso file to the USB drive and boot it.

www.ventoy.net

As far as I remember that got the controller into a working state again, but with old firmware. Then I followed the regular instructions, using a modified freedos iso, to which I added the relevant dos updater files, on the ventoy thumb memory. Here is a guide how to add files to the freedos iso. For some reason, although my new Mainboard (Asus p11c-m4/l) is uefi based I couldn't figure out how to boot into a uefi shell, that's why I went the DOS route.

Modifying FreeDOS Installation ISO for Updating BIOS – TrishTech.com

The updating instructions where these, which states it's just a translation of the original STH article:

LSI SAS 3008 HBA (z.B. IBM M1215) in den IT mode flashen – ZFS - Technik News

Diese Anleitung ist stark angelehnt an die englische Anleitung von STH und speziell für Leute gedach

www.mytech-home.de

https://www.servethehome.com/flash-lsi-sas-3008-hba-e-g-ibm-m1215-mode/

These were the files I used in the process:

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

Good luck