(Resolved) Need help getting my M1015 up and running

[lovingHDTV]

I've installed the card in the server, and upon boot up I can go into system BIOS and see the drive I added to the card.  So I know that much is working.

 

When unRaid starts, I go into devices to assign the drive and it is not in the list.  For whatever reason the BIOS sees it, but not unRaid.

 

I also tried to run the LSI flashing utility and it just responds that no LSI cards found.  I should be able to get it to work without flashing to IT mode correct?

 

I'm running version: 5.0-beta14

My server stats are in my profile below.

 

Attached my syslog:

 

Thanks,

dave

syslog.zip

[BobPhoenix]

I also tried to run the LSI flashing utility and it just responds that no LSI cards found.  I should be able to get it to work without flashing to IT mode correct?

No.  unRAID does not work with IR (RAID mode) only IT mode.  I have 5 M1015s and I thought I had flashed them all but I couldn't get one to work and found out that I had missed flashing it.  Once I completed the flashing it worked just fine.  I would find another MB that is compatible or if your current MB bios is UEFI then try the EFI way.  I believe it is described in the thread with the flash downloads just read through it.  It is quite a ways into the thread.  The MB I've been using to flash mine is a SuperMicro C2SBA+II.  Sorry I can't be of further assistance.

[lovingHDTV]

OK I pulled my HTPC and tried it out.

 

It won't boot. 

 

It gets past seeing the M1015, I can see the drive attached to it in the bios, but then when it gets to Verifying DMI Data, it prints an error: Windows NT found 0K low memory 3k is required . . . <something>.  I'm running XP on this system.

 

I tried it on my older desktop, it only has a PCIEv1.1 slot, but 2.0 is supposed to be backwards compatible so I figure why not.  In this case it gets beyond the BIOS, but the the screen goes black except for  a single cursor, than starts slowly moving down the screen.  After about 5 minutes of this, I restarted the machine and windows did an fsck of the hard drive because it found file system errors.

 

I'm not out of machines to try

 

Guess it will go into a box for later unless someone has an idea of how to flash this beast.

 

thanks,

dave

[lovingHDTV]

Tried one more thing:

 

Took an extra usb drive, installed unRaid on it.  Booted HTPC and ran sas2flash on it.  Reports no LSI cards found.

 

Not sure why it doesn't like this M1015.  The Bios doesn't have any issues with it.

 

dave

[BobPhoenix]

OK I pulled my HTPC and tried it out.

 

It won't boot. 

 

It gets past seeing the M1015, I can see the drive attached to it in the bios, but then when it gets to Verifying DMI Data, it prints an error: Windows NT found 0K low memory 3k is required . . . <something>.  I'm running XP on this system.

 

I tried it on my older desktop, it only has a PCIEv1.1 slot, but 2.0 is supposed to be backwards compatible so I figure why not.  In this case it gets beyond the BIOS, but the the screen goes black except for  a single cursor, than starts slowly moving down the screen.  After about 5 minutes of this, I restarted the machine and windows did an fsck of the hard drive because it found file system errors.

 

I'm not out of machines to try

 

Guess it will go into a box for later unless someone has an idea of how to flash this beast.

 

thanks,

dave

I used a DOS boot USB I never tried booting my VISTA install that is on the C2SBA+II.  If you create a DOS USB flash drive and then boot from that on your HTPC I think you could try again.  That might work on the MB you want to install the M1015 on as well.  Just boot to a DOS prompt from the USB flash drive.

[sureguy]

Tried one more thing:

 

Took an extra usb drive, installed unRaid on it.  Booted HTPC and ran sas2flash on it.  Reports no LSI cards found.

 

Not sure why it doesn't like this M1015.  The Bios doesn't have any issues with it.

 

dave

 

 

I had the same problem on my ESXi machine, the command doesn't work on all motherboards.  I would suggest trying another motherboard.

[lovingHDTV]

I've got a DOS boot USB drive and can boot to DOS.  Do you run the windows x32 flash utility on it?

 

thanks,

dave

 

OK I pulled my HTPC and tried it out.

 

It won't boot. 

 

It gets past seeing the M1015, I can see the drive attached to it in the bios, but then when it gets to Verifying DMI Data, it prints an error: Windows NT found 0K low memory 3k is required . . . <something>.  I'm running XP on this system.

 

I tried it on my older desktop, it only has a PCIEv1.1 slot, but 2.0 is supposed to be backwards compatible so I figure why not.  In this case it gets beyond the BIOS, but the the screen goes black except for  a single cursor, than starts slowly moving down the screen.  After about 5 minutes of this, I restarted the machine and windows did an fsck of the hard drive because it found file system errors.

 

I'm not out of machines to try

 

Guess it will go into a box for later unless someone has an idea of how to flash this beast.

 

thanks,

dave

I used a DOS boot USB I never tried booting my VISTA install that is on the C2SBA+II.  If you create a DOS USB flash card and then boot on your HTPC I think you could try again.  That might work on the MB you want to install the M1015 on as well.

[bcbgboy13]

Few misconceptions here:

 

1. First off - M1015 comes with "IBM" firmware which is similar to the one for LSI9240-8i. You will need to cross-flash to the latest IT firmware for either LSI 9210-8i or LSI 9211-8i in order to be able to use it with Unraid.

 

2. There is specific procedure to follow and it does not start with sas2flash you are using. Please read and follow the instructions carefully and to the dot or you can damage your card - they are now more valuable since they are no longer manufactured.

 

3. The correct file to use under DOS environment is named sas2flsh and not sas2flash - it is missing "a" as it has to confirm to the old DOS naming scheme of 8.3

 

4. Even if cross-flashed correctly Beta 14 which you use does not support (like) the LSI SAS cards. You will have to go either down to Beta 10, 10a or 12 or use one of the newer RC (but not RC6 unless you get the latest test2 variant).

[seanant]

I use xboot to verify the boot disk image prior to creating a disk.

 

https://sites.google.com/site/shamurxboot/

 

This works well for me. Hopefully you find it useful too.

[BobPhoenix]

I've got a DOS boot USB drive and can boot to DOS.  Do you run the windows x32 flash utility on it?

 

thanks,

dave

 

OK I pulled my HTPC and tried it out.

 

It won't boot. 

 

It gets past seeing the M1015, I can see the drive attached to it in the bios, but then when it gets to Verifying DMI Data, it prints an error: Windows NT found 0K low memory 3k is required . . . <something>.  I'm running XP on this system.

 

I tried it on my older desktop, it only has a PCIEv1.1 slot, but 2.0 is supposed to be backwards compatible so I figure why not.  In this case it gets beyond the BIOS, but the the screen goes black except for  a single cursor, than starts slowly moving down the screen.  After about 5 minutes of this, I restarted the machine and windows did an fsck of the hard drive because it found file system errors.

 

I'm not out of machines to try

 

Guess it will go into a box for later unless someone has an idea of how to flash this beast.

 

thanks,

dave

I used a DOS boot USB I never tried booting my VISTA install that is on the C2SBA+II.  If you create a DOS USB flash card and then boot on your HTPC I think you could try again.  That might work on the MB you want to install the M1015 on as well.

I used this to flash mine: "LSI MegaRAID to SAS2008(P11).zip - 5.87 MB (DOS, via bootable usb key)" from this post.  Specifically I did:

 

Launch each step

[*]Step 1, 1.bat (This will dump all the information about your card to a file Named ADAPTERS.TXT.  In this file is your SAS Address which will be required for step 6 (6.bat)

[*]Step 2, 2.bat will save your current controllers SBR to a file Mega.sbr, please rename it to the cards model your using this on, example IBM M1015, rename mega.sbr to SBRM1015.bin

[*]Step 3, 3.bat will wipe your current SBR and clear your controllers BIOs.

[*]Set 4, Shutdown your system now, plug your USB stick in another system were you can get at the ADAPTERS.TXT (that was dumped in step 1) file to write donw your SAS Controllers Address

[*]Put back usb stick in the system with the Mega card and boot to usb again.

[*]In step 5 you can Flash your card to either IT or IR mode by lauched the respective batch file (5IT.bat or 5IR.bat) This will file your mega controller to SAS2008 firmware P11 (lastest as of time posted)

[*]Step 6, 6.bat will echo out the command you need to run manually in a commandline to re-program back your SAS Address you obtain when you shutdown your system and wrote it down from the ADAPTERS.TXT file

[*]reboot and enjoy!

This info is in the "__READMEFIRST.txt" inside the archived files in the download like the one I used above and has more info.  If you want newer firmware you may have to substitue newer versions after you extract these to a directory on the flash drive.  I haven't done that yet myself.  I flashed the P11 firmware and haven't tried upgrading it yet.

[lovingHDTV]

Thanks so much!  I don't have any idea why I did not see that right on the page I read, but it worked beautifully.  I've not installed it in my server yet, but was able to go through the entire flashing process successfully.

 

thanks again,

dave

 

EDIT: Got it installed in the server, upgraded the server to the latest test image (test2) and am in the process of preclearing a drive.

 

 

I've got a DOS boot USB drive and can boot to DOS.  Do you run the windows x32 flash utility on it?

 

thanks,

dave

 

OK I pulled my HTPC and tried it out.

 

It won't boot. 

 

It gets past seeing the M1015, I can see the drive attached to it in the bios, but then when it gets to Verifying DMI Data, it prints an error: Windows NT found 0K low memory 3k is required . . . <something>.  I'm running XP on this system.

 

I tried it on my older desktop, it only has a PCIEv1.1 slot, but 2.0 is supposed to be backwards compatible so I figure why not.  In this case it gets beyond the BIOS, but the the screen goes black except for  a single cursor, than starts slowly moving down the screen.  After about 5 minutes of this, I restarted the machine and windows did an fsck of the hard drive because it found file system errors.

 

I'm not out of machines to try

 

Guess it will go into a box for later unless someone has an idea of how to flash this beast.

 

thanks,

dave

I used a DOS boot USB I never tried booting my VISTA install that is on the C2SBA+II.  If you create a DOS USB flash card and then boot on your HTPC I think you could try again.  That might work on the MB you want to install the M1015 on as well.

I used this to flash mine: "LSI MegaRAID to SAS2008(P11).zip - 5.87 MB (DOS, via bootable usb key)" from this post.  Specifically I did:

 

Launch each step

[*]Step 1, 1.bat (This will dump all the information about your card to a file Named ADAPTERS.TXT.  In this file is your SAS Address which will be required for step 6 (6.bat)

[*]Step 2, 2.bat will save your current controllers SBR to a file Mega.sbr, please rename it to the cards model your using this on, example IBM M1015, rename mega.sbr to SBRM1015.bin

[*]Step 3, 3.bat will wipe your current SBR and clear your controllers BIOs.

[*]Set 4, Shutdown your system now, plug your USB stick in another system were you can get at the ADAPTERS.TXT (that was dumped in step 1) file to write donw your SAS Controllers Address

[*]Put back usb stick in the system with the Mega card and boot to usb again.

[*]In step 5 you can Flash your card to either IT or IR mode by lauched the respective batch file (5IT.bat or 5IR.bat) This will file your mega controller to SAS2008 firmware P11 (lastest as of time posted)

[*]Step 6, 6.bat will echo out the command you need to run manually in a commandline to re-program back your SAS Address you obtain when you shutdown your system and wrote it down from the ADAPTERS.TXT file

[*]reboot and enjoy!

This info is in the "__READMEFIRST.txt" inside the archived files in the download like the one I used above and has more info.  If you want newer firmware you may have to substitue newer versions after you extract these to a directory on the flash drive.  I haven't done that yet myself.  I flashed the P11 firmware and haven't tried upgrading it yet.

[dikkiedirk]

Are there any settings in the BIOS of a flashed M1015 that influence overall speed, Read an Write speed and Parity-Sync/Rebuild/Check Speed.