Using a LSI 6Gbps SAS HBA 9211-8i FW P20 IT

[Rudy81]

I currently have a well running unRaid with the latest stable version.  I am using an older Asus M2n-SLI Deluxe board.  I have 6 drives on the system and wanted to be able to add a few extra drives, so purchased the HBA 9211-81 IT.  Added card to board and started system.  The card takes over the boot process and I have tried various options in the Avago settings.  The card can see any drives attached to it, so seem to be running fine.

 

I wish to use the card to just allow me to add other drives, not to take over the system BIOS.  I cannot get past the Avago screens and get the system to boot from the MB BIOS.  I suspect I am setting the card up incorrectly, but have tried all options in the Avago menus and no luck.  Either I get a notice that the Avago boot ROM cannot find any supported devices, or it finds the drives on the card, but I want it to book from the unRaid flash drive. 

 

Would appreciate any help on how to properly set up the card to simply provide extra SATA drive capability.

 

[Vr2Io]

Just setting Unraid USB is the first boot device in mainboard BIOS, if problem persist then try to disable storage OPROM in mainboard BIOS.

 

Or provide the mainboard BIOS screen shoot for further advice.

[JorgeB]

You can also delete the HBA BIOS, it's not needed for Unraid.

[Rudy81]

With the HBA card not installed, unRaid boots normally with the USB as the boot device. USB is set as the first boot device in the Asus BIOS.  When I install the HBA card, the HBA BIOS starts up first and I cannot access the Asus BIOS at all.  Process seems to stop at the HBA BIOS level waiting for a boot drive. I have read that the HBA BIOS takes a long time to process.  Perhaps I am not waiting long enough for the system to then proceed to the Asus BIOS? How long should I wait?

 

I cannot flash the card since it will not go past the HBA BIOS.  Most annoying.....

[JorgeB]

11 minutes ago, Rudy81 said:

I cannot flash the card since it will not go past the HBA BIOS.

You'd need to use a different PC to flash, also look for option on your BIOS to not show the OPT ROM, though this is mostly available on server boards, but it might be there.

[Rudy81]

4 minutes ago, JorgeB said:

You'd need to use a different PC to flash, also look for option on your BIOS to not show the OPT ROM, though this is mostly available on server boards, but it might be there.

I will look into these options, thank you.

[Rudy81]

Finally had a chance to play around with the LSI card again.  There is no OPT ROM option in the main board BIOS.  I am guessing my only option is to disable to Boot function in the LSI card.  I only have windows machines, so will look around on how to get that done. BTW, I do have the first, and only, boot option in the BIOS set to the flash drive with UnRaid.

[Rudy81]

Just to summarize the problem so far.  The card takes over the system boot function and I cannot force the boot process to start from the system and thus the flash drive.  The card does enter into the SAS menu and if I connect drives to it, it can see them, just keeps looking for a boot assignment from those drives. 

 

With the "Boot Support" set to "Disable", the system gets stuck on the following screen.

 

 

[JorgeB]

You'll need to boot in a different PC and delete the LSI BIOS.