[SOLVED] Dell H200 IT Mode - No disks

[Coffeeri]

Hello Forum!
I bought a Dell Perc H200 flashed into IT mode (LSI 9211-8I IT-MODE) from ebay. I thought it would be a plug and play in my Dell T610. But unfortunately no drives show up in lsblk nor fdisk -l.
He said he used it before in a Fujutsu RX300.

lspci -vmmnn gives me amongst others:

Slot: 06:00.0
Class: Serial Attached SCSI controller [0107]
Vendor: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic [1000]
Device: SAS2008 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 [Falcon] [0072]
SVendor: Dell [1028]
SDevice: 6Gbps SAS HBA Adapter [1f1c]
Rev: 03

What might be the problem? I am a newbie to Servers and just wanted an HBA to run my Disks in ZFS.
Thanks for your help!

 

[sb-jw]

Did you use the Storage PCIe Slot in the T610? If yes, try to use a regular one and recheck.

Have you already checked the Controller BIOS? Maybe there is something wrong.

 

[Coffeeri]

Did you use the Storage PCIe Slot in the T610? If yes, try to use a regular one and recheck.

I actually put it first into the Storage PCIe Slot - it wouldn't boot at all. It sits now in another PCIe Slot.

Have you already checked the Controller BIOS? Maybe there is something wrong.

It does not show up on boot, where other cards show "press Ctrl-c to configure". When I go into the Bios settings, I am not sure which option might be relevant. I see under "PCI IRQ Assignment" → "Slot 2 Dell inc adapter....... Default" (the h200 card is actually in PCIe slot 2).

 

[Coffeeri]

So I did a reflash
* Downloaded FreeDOS and put it on usb stick using rufus
* Copied the Firmware https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/drivers/driversdetails?driverId=K161K
SASHBA_Firmware_6GBPS-SAS-HBA_07.03.06.00_A11_ZPE.exe
* Run sas2flsh -o -e 6
* Run sas2flsh -o -f 6gbpsas.fw
* Booted into Proxmox (boot disks are directly attached via sata to motherboard)
* run SAS-Non-RAID_Firmware_K161K_LN_07.03.06.00_A11.BIN https://www.dell.com/support/home/de/de/debsdt1/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=k161k


Now the card shows up during boot, I can get into the utility using crtl+c.
* It was "disabled by user", fixed by putting Boot support → Enable BIOS & OS, even though I boot directly from a SATA input on the Motherboard.

Problem stays, drives do not show up. In the utility under sas topology it doesn't show any drives as well. I got 4 SATA drives in bay 0-3 (2*3tb, 2*2tb, adding 4*6tb soon).

 

[sb-jw]

What SAS Cable you used to connect the controller and the backplane? Could you post a picture of your server here?

 

[Coffeeri]

What SAS Cable you used to connect the controller and the backplane? Could you post a picture of your server here?

Sure! https://imgur.com/a/On85swI
Those should be SSF 8087 to 8087 where one of those 2 cables has one side with a 90° angle (X1 and C1 are the same cable). The other cable is straight on both sides. Those go into my backplane.

I also included some screenshots of the output while booting..

Note: I tried the most guides to reflash such as https://techmattr.wordpress.com/201...-mode-dell-perc-h200-and-h310/comment-page-1/, but I could not execute

megarec.exe -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin

I heard it might be a problem to flash the card on the same server. I put it in my desktop machine, but it did not let me boot and pass the card in the booting progres (showed me the card name on screen).

 

[sb-jw]

Did you removed the other controller? Or is the H200 recognized as 6Gbps? It seems too there is a very old FW on it, you should use newer one (e. g. v19).

You are sure, there is no other hardware faults? Did you checked the SAS Cable if they are not reversed?

For which reason you can not execute the command?

 

[Coffeeri]

Did you removed the other controller? Or is the H200 recognized as 6Gbps? It seems too there is a very old FW on it, you should use newer one (e. g. v19).

You are sure, there is no other hardware faults? Did you checked the SAS Cable if they are not reversed?

I reversed one of those cables, now it works!! Thank you! Maybe I look into getting a newer FW.

For which reason you can not execute the command?

I have no idea, it gets stuck, I let it ran for a half an hour and saw no progress at all. Nothing was printed on the screen.

I mark this as Solved for now. I hope 6tb drives will work.