Hi everybody,

I want to firmware update an ASMedia SATA Controller. Unfortunately I dont have an ATX Mainboard with 2 PCI-E ports. Got only 2 Mini-ITX Mainboards with used slots... .

So I was curious if I could just run a windows VM in unraid and pass thru a new ASM 1166 Card to a VM to run the flashing tool. Has someone experience with that?

You should, as long as your hardware supports it.

Negative... Array needs to be started and havin those started with the drives attached could be risky while flashing the firmware...

14 minutes ago, W0nderW0lf said:

Negative... Array needs to be started and havin those started with the drives attached could be risky while flashing the firmware...

Remove the drives then?
Else, you can use a liveUSB stick to boot on Windows directly.

Edited November 21, 2025Nov 21 by gyto6

1 hour ago, W0nderW0lf said:

Array needs to be started and havin those started with the drives attached could be risky while flashing the firmware...

I assumed there wasn't anything connected to the controller; you would need to use a different controller for the VM, it could also be a USB device.

I will try the Windows live USB method.

I report back if it works.

So it worked with the Live USB.

Thanks for the hint. It took ages setting up a stick and booting it.

In the end it worked with a portable Windows live image. "WintoUSB"

You just need to remove the unraid stick and replace with the windows live version.
Booting took over 60 minutes because it installed stuff and rebooted multiple times.

Flashing my ASM1166 after the first boot was fast n easy.

Thank you guys for your help!