Need help with H200, FreeNAS, and Dell R710

[Flapjack]

Lots of good info in the forums here, but I haven't been able to find anything that can get me out of the boat I'm in.

Basically, I have an R710 running FreeNAS 9.3. The R710 came with an Perc 6/i, which according to the FreeNAS gurus, is not ideal due to the fact that it can't pass through the drives directly to the OS, which is best practice when using non-RAID systems like ZFS. So I bought an H200 off Ebay, which was recommended for its JBOD feature.

Well, for whatever reason, the H200 I purchased did not show a JBOD option. Additionally, when I booted into FreeNAS, it gave me an error that the firmware version (7) didn't match the driver version in FreeNAS (20). The led me to the following section.

Following the instructions on this page, I cross-flashed the H200 to an LSI adapter with version P20 firmware. However, upon rebooting, the R710 was not happy and said an invalid device was in the integrated PCIe slot.

From there, it gets kinda fuzzy. I've tried about everything. I can boot with the card in a regular PCIe slot, but no matter what I flash to it now, I can't get it to boot in the integrated slot. I've read that the R710 flashes *something* to the NVRAM to keep track of the card (?), but clearing NVRAM doesn't help, either. The only clue I have to what is going on with that is when I flash using sas2flash.efi, is says something about a mismatch, then writes something to NVRAM. I've tried flashing the official Dell H200 adapter, integrated, and modular firmware. None seem to be able to boot in the integrated (or is it modular) R710 slot, and I don't have longer SAS cables... nor do I really want to buy any.

I was able to find someone with a similar problem on this page, though with an H700. The third post by gwm210 talks about using a USB DOS disk and the Megarec exe to flash the integrated Dell H200 firmware, but Megarec doesn't seem to want to work. Even though the ROM says "valid" before the flash, and works fine with sas2flash.efi, it doesn't actually flash (I can't remember the error message... off the top of my head).

So at this point, I want to get back to the stock H200 firmware and be able to boot off it in the controller slot once again. If that doesn't work, I'll look into longer cables and sacrifice a PCIe slot... which I really don't want to do, as I plan on filling them up with PCI SSDs.

 

[Stereodude]

Did you try following this guide?

 

[Flapjack]

I looked through it, but didn't find anything that helped. I eventually did figure it out, though.

First off, I was able to finagle some extra slack from the cables behind the backplane... more than enough to reach the controller in the PCIe slot.

Next, I used a USB DOS disk and the LSI feature pack to get access to all the apps I need to flash (you need both megarec and sas2flash):

Once booted to FreeDOS, I ran the following commands:

#Backup SBR and SPD
1) megarec.exe -readsbr 0 <filename.sbr>
2) megarec.exe -readspd 0 <filename.spd>
3) sas2flsh.exe -listall (to find adapter number... usually "0")
4) sas2flsh.exe -c 0 -list (to get your SAS address... WRITE IT DOWN)

#Erase firmware
1) megarec.exe -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
2) megarec.exe -cleanflash 0
3) REBOOT!

#Flash Dell Firmware for 6GBs SAS Adapter:
1) sas2flsh.exe -o -f 6GBPSAS.FW
2) sas2flsh.exe -o -sasadd 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx (to replace SAS address you wrote down)

#Flash LSI P07 Firmware:
1) sas2flsh.exe -o -f 2118P07IT.BIN
2) sas2flsh.exe -o -sasadd 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx (to replace SAS address you wrote down)

#Flash LSI P20 Firmware:
1) sas2flsh.exe -o -f 2118P20IT.BIN
2) sas2flsh.exe -o -sasadd 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx (to replace SAS address you wrote down)

#Check to make sure your correct SAS address is present:
1) sas2flsh.exe -listall (to find adapter number... usually "0")
2) sas2flsh.exe -c 0 -list (ensure it's your address, and not all zeros)
3) reboot and profit

I'm not sure if you have to flash the SBR and SPD back. I didn't, and I don't have a boot ROM. It just flies right through that part of POST.

I was even able to put the card in the the normal integrated slot... keeping my regular PCIe slots free.

 

[Marc Addeo]

Flapjack, in your original post you mention that you can't get Megarec to work. How did you end up getting it to work to fix it? For me it just kinda hangs, don't remember the exact output but I let it sit for at least 5-10 minutes and nothing happened.

I actually have the exact same problem as you... R710, just bought a h200 off ebay, cables too short to reach the other PCIe slots (don't think I can make any slack either :/).

I tried your instructions, but left out some steps so that may be why it's not working... I can't get megarec to work, so I left that out. And I didn't have to do the -sasadd after flashing, it seemed to have the correct SAS address after each flash and at the end though.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Stereodude]

Have you seen this guide? SAS HBA crossflashing or flashing to IT mode, Dell Perc H200 and H310 Or do you have it fully flashed?

FWIW, a H310 might be a better card to use since the connectors are at the end of the PCB instead of near the PCI bracket.

 

[Marc Addeo]

Yeah, I referenced that guide.

I tried it with the 6Gbps FW, LSI P7 FW, LSI P17 FW, LSI P20 FW.

Yeah, I wonder if the SAS cables would reach the H310.. Would rather not have to drop money on another card, of course! So will have to continue fighting this problem for a while :/

The only thing I haven't been able to do is run megarec.exe to overwrite the SBR with the sbrempty.bin. And I'm wondering if that's the key thing, if that's maybe overwriting something that is causing a lock in to specific hardware or something or if it's erasing it more than sas2flsh -o -e 6 does. Idk, just spit balling really.

 

[jerryberry]

Does anyone have the SPD file for the h700 in adapter mode (original SPD). I flashed to integrated recently, using the dell forum directions. The directions told me to backup my SBR but not my SPD, now i'm trying to flash it back to default settings but i don't have an original h700 spd, and i believe this is causing some configuration mismatch between the perc and the c2100 backplane. I've found many h700i SPDs but never the adapter version.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Matthew Earley]

Has anyone figured out how to make the r510 or r710 work with the h200 flashed to LSI in the original Dell storage slot? There is no way to move the h200 card to an alternate PCI slot, the cables will not reach.

Thank you in advance

 

[CrackedConch]

I have the H200 flashed in my R510-12 working perfectly. I used the guide referenced in post #5 above. I did end up using an asus box for the uefi portion, but finished the flash with the card in the 510. FreeNAS sees all of the disks, to include the two inside. The one downside is the HDD power/status lights do not work, however, the activity lights do. Admittedly, It took a couple tries to get it done... but persistence paid off. It has been silky smooth for a couple of months now.

I can try to help as much as I can, but that guide is the one that worked for me.

 

[nle]

I'm bumping this.

I bought this H200 from ebay. Putting it in the storage slot gives me an error: "Invalid PCIe card found in the Internal Storage slot".

It's not currently flashed to IT mode. It's "stock" from the seller.

It works fine in the other PCIe slots.

Is there any way to flash it to work in both IT mode and fit in the internal storage slot?

 

[Flapjack]

I'm bumping this.

I bought this H200 from ebay. Putting it in the storage slot gives me an error: "Invalid PCIe card found in the Internal Storage slot".

It's not currently flashed to IT mode. It's "stock" from the seller.

It works fine in the other PCIe slots.

Is there any way to flash it to work in both IT mode and fit in the internal storage slot?

Follow my instructions in post #3. You should be fine. Not sure why it would be throwing that error if it was "stock". You may want to grab another H200 card off Ebay and try that.

 

[Daedalus0101101]

Follow my instructions in post #3. You should be fine. Not sure why it would be throwing that error if it was "stock". You may want to grab another H200 card off Ebay and try that.

Hey I have a Question. I am also using a Dell R710 with an H200. I followed your instructions to the T, but my R710 still throws the "Invalid card in PCI slot" upon powerup and doesnt go past there.

edit--- I just tried it on another H200 card and get the same result. I thought that I hosed the first one, so I took another H200 destined for another FreeNAS box and tried that one too. Same Result.

 

[Zedicus]

you guys need to use the IT firmware from the Dell site if you want to use that card in the internal storage slot. if you use the LSI firmware the card will not work in the internal storage slot. the Dell IT firmwares do not cover as many versions and last time i had looked version 20 had not been made available by Dell though.

 

[liquidice]

I have the H200 flashed in my R510-12 working perfectly. I used the guide referenced in post #5 above. I did end up using an asus box for the uefi portion, but finished the flash with the card in the 510. FreeNAS sees all of the disks, to include the two inside. The one downside is the HDD power/status lights do not work, however, the activity lights do. Admittedly, It took a couple tries to get it done... but persistence paid off. It has been silky smooth for a couple of months now.

I can try to help as much as I can, but that guide is the one that worked for me.

I'm assuming you used the LSI firmware. Did it work in the same internal storage slot or did you have to get new cables?

I'm having a hard time even getting the Dell IT firmware. Does anyone have a direct link? It keeps saying drivers and downloads for this device can be found with the supported platform.