Need help fixing a RMS25CB080 stuck in recovery mode

[sirnano]

I have a RMS25CB080 that I flashed to try and use IT mode, it errored with something about a "card revision mismatch" but now it is no longer showing up as an option rom, and not working. The storage light on the front of my server is also solidly lit. I have an Intel S2600GZ with a LSI 2208 based Intel RAID card RMS25CB080. Intel® Integrated RAID Module RMS25CB080 - Product Specifications | Intel

I have tried many commands to fix it but pretty much everything I've done has not worked. I can still flash the card with megarec but some utilities will return with "Unable to initialise PAL. Exiting program" as the board I have isn't native BIOS. If anyone has some sort of SDR and SPD files with instructions on how to flash them, or any ideas or literally anything to try and fix this card I would be eternally grateful.

My goal is to just get the card woking as it used to with Intel RAID BIOS. If I have to flash it to IT mode to recover it, or anything like that, I'd be willing to try. My original goal when I attempted to flash the card to IT mode was to flash some seagate drives to remove their firmware locks, then put my RAID card back to it's intel mode (like I want to do now) but the IT mode flash failed and I didn't really plan on how I would get the card back to it's normal functionality.

 

[frankharv]

If anyone has some sort of SDR and SPD files

I checked and I only have LSI3408 based Intel card firmware files.

I see this is an Mezzanine Card. That makes it so much harder to flash in another machine.

I do see you mention "OptionROM". This should only be needed for Legacy Booting aka CSM mode.
You don't even need to flash that for EFI booting. The preferred method of flashing nowadays..

 

[sirnano]

I checked and I only have LSI3408 based Intel card firmware files.

I see this is an Mezzanine Card. That makes it so much harder to flash in another machine.

I do see you mention "OptionROM". This should only be needed for Legacy Booting aka CSM mode.
You don't even need to flash that for EFI booting. The preferred method of flashing nowadays..

Thank you for checking your cards, I really appreciate that, even if you don't have one that could help.

Yes, it being a Mezzanine Card makes it very hard to flash and I am considering just chucking the server away or selling it for cheap or something as the chances of being able to recover this are looking very slim

When I say it doesn't show up as an option rom, I meant that the card doesn't work at all. It doesn't show up as an EFI option rom, nor a BIOS option rom, and the light on the card does not illuminate (however I can still send firmware files to it.)

Thank you for replying!

 

[gregsachs]

I have the 2208SASHWR_FWPKG-v23.34.0-0019.zip flash package if that is useful.
also available from here:

Firmware Package for Intel® Integrated RAID Modules RMS25PB080(N), RMS25PB040, RMT3PB080, RMS25CB080(N), RMS25CB040, RMT3CB080 and Controllers RS25AB080, RS25SB008, RS25DB080, RS25NB008

Provides firmware for 6Gbs full featured Intel RAID Controllers supporting RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60.

www.intel.com

 

[frankharv]

OK lets use that file download as a baseline.

Extract it to temp spot. Create a UEFI formatted USB stick from your OS of choice. (fat32/efi type)

Use the file /2208SASHWR_FWPKG-v23.34.0-0019/CmdTool2/CmdTool2.efi as your boot file (/boot/efi/) Copy over to created directory on USB.

Now copy all the files from the archive file to your USB disk.

On your target computer disconnect all other disk devices. Boot up with prepared UEFI USB stick.

Go to BIOS and ensure USB stick is booting in UEFI mode.

Boot to USB stick and watch it run script startup.nsh.

If UEFI booting is a problem set the BIOS to boot from UEFI Shell. Then use UEFI commands to map the USB stick and then run startup.nsh manually.

map -r
fs0:
startup.nsh

 

[sirnano]

OK lets use that file download as a baseline.

Extract it to temp spot. Create a UEFI formatted USB stick from your OS of choice. (fat32/efi type)

Use the file /2208SASHWR_FWPKG-v23.34.0-0019/CmdTool2/CmdTool2.efi as your boot file (/boot/efi/) Copy over to created directory on USB.

Now copy all the files from the archive file to your USB disk.

On your target computer disconnect all other disk devices. Boot up with prepared UEFI USB stick.

Go to BIOS and ensure USB stick is booting in UEFI mode.

Boot to USB stick and watch it run script startup.nsh.

If UEFI booting is a problem set the BIOS to boot from UEFI Shell. Then use UEFI commands to map the USB stick and then run startup.nsh manually.

map -r
fs0:
startup.nsh

Cmdtool2 does not detect the card. It says “No MegaRAID card found”

 

[frankharv]

I am sorry I switched the answer to what to use for flasher. Either CmdTool2.efi or storcli.efi. I had to read the script.

I like to use the startup.nsh to advantage. This is what you need to try and acheive:
CmdTool2.efi -adpfwflash -f ..\..\MR514p3.rom -aall

How does the controller show up using storcli.efi instead??

 

[sirnano]

I am sorry I switched the answer to what to use for flasher. Either CmdTool2.efi or storcli.efi. I had to read the script.

I like to use the startup.nsh to advantage. This is what you need to try and acheive:
CmdTool2.efi -adpfwflash -f ..\..\MR514p3.rom -aall

How does the controller show up using storcli.efi instead??

I am pretty sure both storcli and cmdtool2 both need the adapter to be alive and well in order to flash the firmware, it’s something about hostbooting. I am in Australia and just now going to bed so I will try everything everyone can come up with in this forum post tomorrow. Thanks everyone

 

[frankharv]

Don't forget there was a recovery mode jumper on some of these old cards...

 

[frankharv]

Looks like no jumpers from the pix:

Intel RMS25CB08 8-Port SAS 6Gb/s Integrated Raid Module 370-1020-02 G35316-610 | eBay

Intel RMS25CB08 8-Port SAS 6Gb/s Integrated Raid Module 370-1020-02 G35316-610Brand: IntelPart Number: RMS25CB08, SYM-370-1020-02MPN: RMS25CB08, 370-1020-02Type: Raid Controller ModuleModel: RMS25CB0Number of Ports: 8Maximum Data Rate: 6 GBRAID Levels: 1, 0Cache Memory: 1GBInternal Interfaces...

www.ebay.com

Bottom left of card has jumper holes unpopulated.

Top of card has BBU connector and bottom right connector is some sort of RAID key.

For this little bit of money for controller the machine deserves to live on.

 

[frankharv]

When I say that your S2600GZ should be saved I guess my first question is:
Is it 1U or 2U.
The 2U might be able to be upgraded with nicer backplane and better controller.

For instance add in 12G controller and if that works upgrade the backplane.

Intel RMS3CC080 8 Port 12Gb/s Mezzanine Raid Controller PBA H24096-302 | eBay

Model: RMS3CC080. P/N: PBA H24096-302.

www.ebay.com

Does your Intel board support PCIe 3.x? Xeon V2? If so it might be worth upgrading.
Couple of NVMe backplane choices if 2U. Same with 1U but I am unfamiliar with that line.

 

[gregsachs]

The mezzanine is PCIe 3.0x8;

Intel has pretty good documentation on pin outs in terms of seeing if a newer mezzanine would fit, I have not tried because the backplanes are sff-8087 and a newer one would be 8463

 

[sirnano]

Hi all, I have bought a new card as I don’t think it’s possible to repair this one without buying tools worth more than what the card itself costs. However, if anybody knows how to repair my current one that would be amazing.

 

[sirnano]

Hi all, I have obtained a PERC H200i, only when I put it in the same server with the Intel raid controller it says something about a broken bios during boot, I'll look into it more.

 

[frankharv]

I have read mezzanine cards are not brand interchangeable.

Plus you have OCP2 and OCP3 mezzanine card 'standard'.

Server/NIC - OpenCompute

www.opencompute.org

I am afraid that it is not quite a PCIe slot....