Issues with flashing LSI 9211

[Qwerki]

Hello all.

It's been a stressful day for me - I recently bought a LSI 9211 with a view to cross flashing it to a 9240 as I'd read many similar reports (including some here, which is why I'm posting) of people doing the other way with little trouble. - Alas, it wasn't to be, which is quite annoying a it was the same price as the 9240, but had its connectors in a more convenient orientation for my case, so I got it solely for that reason!

Long story short, the flash failed as the flash chip I have is only 4MB, and it seems the 9240 requires 8MB.

So I've tried to get the card back to how it was, but I can't for the life of me get it to flash successfully. I backed up my existing firmware, bios, and sbr. My procedure has been generally:

• megarec -cleanflash 0
• megarec -writesbr 0 backupsbr.bin
• <reboot>
• sas2flash -f backupfw.bin (then -b backupbios.rom, but I gave up trying to get the bios back until I had the firmware working)

...it initially succeeds, but then fails at the end with the error about Mfg Page 2 mismatching.

If I try flashing the bios, then it also initially succeeds with the flash, but then fails t the end when updating the "version page 3", or similar (as I say, I stopped bothering with it as the fw is more important).

Any ideas on how I can flash this back to normal? The card came with firmware P14 IR on it, if that helps any.

I've tried using sas2flash's new "-sbr" option, which sounds like it's designed to fix my firmware problem, but it just doesn't seem to work - just fails the same way.

 

[bmh.01]

What are you trying to flash the card in hardware wise? They are picky so try another computer if you have several to hand, i've only been able to sucessfully flash in my old X58 i7 setup. All the sandybridge ones did similar to what you have got, I haven't tried it with anything else as I found the working combo and stuck with it.

 

[Qwerki]

Cheers for replying.

I initially tried in my new machine, which is a modern AMD system, but I get the dreaded PAL error using the dos flasher. EFI shell works fine though, so I tried that. I also tried in my old Dell Precision 690, where the DOS tools work, but I don't have UEFI available. Both give the same errors in their respective tools...

 

[Qwerki]

Ok. I tried LSI support giving them all the details and they just told me to use sas2flash :/ ...when I told them I (as expected) got the exact same error, they suggested I try the bootable USB they offer. Which is freedos and....sas2flsh. So I get the same error. *sigh*

There are options on sas2flash that let you upload and download a full image of the entire flash (sas2flash -o -dflash flash.bin firmware.bin to download it to the controller, and sas2flash -uflash flash.bin to upload it to a file). Could anyone with an actual LSI 9211-8i please try grabbing their flash and placing it somewhere I can download it to see if that will reinitialise my NVDATA (which seems to be the problem)?

LSI just say to RMA the controller, but a) it's brand new (was still sealed) so just needs reflashing correctly, b) I'd like to try and save the hassle and costs of postage back to them, and c) I bought it from a seller in Hong Kong on eBay...so warranties are likely to get somewhat complicated as when I put the serial into LSI's checker Chinese contact details come up. :/