How to flash LSI 9212-4I4E? (both my systems just can't)

I'm running a P8P67 in one machine and my other desktops are intel as well. My bro has an ATi chipset I believe, but in his PCI-E slot the POST and windows both report "no LSI devices found".

FYI, apparently LSI's OS flash utilities are just for show, and the DOS version is "incompatible" with intel motherboards (or at least the ones I have). SAS2FLSH.EXE reports " "Failed to initialize PAL".

wtf mates, I can't seem to flash my controller, and it's stock firmware kills 3TB drives like swatting flies...

ideas?

I had no problem flashing to IT firmware on my Supermicro X8SAX board.

Well if I could crap a supermicro right now I would...

Flash it using the EFI shell instead. These instructions are for the 9211 but should work similarly for yours.

THESE ARE MY PERSONAL NOTES TAKEN DURING THE FLASH OPERATION AND AS A RESULT SOME STEPS MAY BE MISSING. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Preperation

• Go to http://www.lsi.com/products/storagecomponents/Pages/LSISAS9211-8i.aspx
• Click Support & Downloads > Firmware > 9211_8i_Package_PXX_IR_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows and Installer_P11_for_UEFI
• Format USB Stick to FAT32
• Extract Installer_P11_for_UEFI and 9211_8i_Package_PXX_IR_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows to USB (All you need are the mptsas2.rom and *.bin firmware files along with the EFI executable on the root of usb stick)
• Insert HBA into motherboard
• Power On Computer and boot into EFI Shell

UPDATE BIOS

• sas2flash -o -b mptsas2.rom

UPDATE FIRMWARE

• sas2flash -o -e 7
• sas2flash -o -f 2118it.bin

I've heard this, but I don't have one, or it's not obvious where it is. I was looking for it, and reading about it, but everyone only says "boot into EFI shell", never mentioning how this is done. There's no button to just go and do this.

If you go into your BIOS you may have an option for boot override. If not, then just make the EFI shell the primary boot device.

In the F8 menu there's a UEFI option for several of the drives, as in UEFI USB drive rather than regular USB drive, but selecting them goes nowhere (straight to windows).

By the way, in the BIOS exit menu there's an option "launch EFI shell", but it just says "Not Found" and does nothing.

Sorry I'm not familiar with your board. Do you have the latest BIOS installed?

I'm currently in your shoes. I've got an Intel DP67BG and MSI H61M-E33 that I'm having the same trouble with.

Looking in the manual for the MSI, there is an EFI Shell option on the Save&Exit page, but it is absent from my BIOS. MSI support has been good working with me so far and provided me a beta BIOS which didn't have the feature either I guess the tech support rep is now contacting their engineers about it. I don't have too high of hopes, but maybe they can provide me with the pre-release BIOS they used for the screenshots in the manual *shrug*

It's not an Intel problem. LSI is really a brand for professional use and they don't bother making their products compatible with consumer boards. It works on some, doesn't on others, and is flashable on few.

My IBM M1015 doesn't work on an old NF4 board, on P965 boards, but it works fine on two X58 boards, and I can flash (with IBM firmware, as I don't need LSI firmware for now).

I'll look into the actual mobo BIOS, I hadn't tried that yet.

By the way, you fellas recommend Supermicro jobs for media servers? I am definitely more interested in stability than any overclocking abilities...

I just flashed from 1850 to 2103. The BIOS was current as of June, and I didn't see any mention of EFI in the release notes since then, so I didn't consider it.

After resetting I went back into the new BIOS and tried to "launch efi shell from filesystem device", but the same thing happens. After a few graphical glitches and an odd mouse appearing, a small popup says "Not Found" with just an "OK" button.

So I successfully flashed the 9212, via my HTPC (running an older chipset, ASUS P5Q or something), of course now the f/w is up to version P12 or 12.0.0.0 or whatever. There seems to be a problem with drivers though...

Originally I believe I was running the windows server drivers, because I just noticed they were the only 9212 drivers I had downloaded, and now I went to update to version 12 and downloaded the "correct" Win7 64 ones, but whenever I install version 12 it seems to corrupt my boot ability. I am stopped with the "insert win cd and choose repair" msg and "require device not found". Of course it isn't referring to the C drive, since it has to use windows files there to even get to that screen, but I don't understand why the SAS2008 would be necessary, why it might not be "accessable" or why the Win7 64 driver v12 simply doesn't work when the Server 2003 v11 does...