Failed PERC II firmware upgrade

[jepar]

Server: PowerEdge 4300 with AMI PERC II RAID

I've upgraded the System BIOS and the ESM Firmware with success (system rebooted fine) buth something happened during the upgrade of the PERC firmware.

After the updater showed that the firmware was updated, the system locked-up while the updater was trying to read the containers configuration from the floppy. I gave it two hours and rebooted.

Now the system hangs (unless the PERC is removed) after ESM completes its initialization (the floppy disk light comes on but does not boot DOS).

I've uplugged the battery from the PERC, removed the RAM for a few minutes to try to cure it, but no success.

Suggestions? Is it possible to re-flash the PERC card?

 

[adpwl1]

You wouldn't happen to also have a DRAC card in that server? If so, try flashing the firmware on that also. There were issues with some DRAC's causing system hangs a long time ago. Having a 4300, you might be in that time frame.

 

[jepar]

Thank you for your answer. There are only 3 PCI cards on this server, 2 NIC and the PERC.

I wonder if the BIOS update has some kind of failover.

 

[mholland88]

I do not know if you have already found the answer, but try pulling the drives and see if the controller post fine with out the drive. If it does it sound like a hard drive went back and is hanging the bus. You can pull one HD at a time till you find the culpret or move the SCSI cable onto the onboard 7890 controller and go into the Ctlr A and choose SCSI disk, then press enter on the disk and choose verify. The bad drive will give a SCSI error. If the raid controller still hangs with drives detached try running RCU (Resource Config Utility) with out the raid controller to clear up any IRQ conflicts then put the raid card back in. If still nogo, if you have two simms try one at a time in the raid controller. If all the above fails it sounds like the raid controller decided just to die at that point.

 

[jepar]

Thanks. Here are the results:

1. No drive plugged? The system still hangs while looking for a floppy.

2.I don't know about RCU. However I've put the controller into a Dell GX1 tower (less complex machine) and I get the same result. I've also disabled (in the BIOS of the PowerEdge) all on-board devices (controllers, parallel port etc.) to reduce the potential for IRQ conflicts but no go.

3. There is only one SIMM on the card.

I am wondering if this is a feature of the controller - trying to access something from the floppy if its BIOS can't boot.

 

[mholland88]

Did the firmware update every complete on the Raid Controller? Or did it lock up during the flash? If it locked during the firmware flash the raid card is dead, there is not anyway I know of to recover it. If the raid controller is timing out with a base port error during post, with no hard drives attached, the card is defiantly dead.

If the raid controller is going through but not finding any logical drives then you need to go into the Ctlr M and choose Object Physical drives and make sure all the drives show up online, press F3 to view your logical drive.

From your orginal post you said "the system locked-up while the updater was trying to read the containers configuration from the floppy" I am not quite sure what you are using to boot the server. You do not need any sort of management diskette for the raid controller. The utility diskette does exist but it is not needed. You just press Ctlr M during post. There is not a setting for this server to automatically try to boot from a floppy if it does not find a bootable logical drive. It will scan the floppy during post, but if it does not find anything it, it will skip on by it. If there is a bootable floppy then it will try to load it. If the system is hanging during the scan of the floppy drive with nothing in it, then you have another issue. I would remove all other PCI cards and see if it still hangs in the same place?

Here is a link about RCU (Resource Configuration Utility)

http://docs.us.dell.com/docs/systems/semer/en/ug/conf.htm

RCU for a PE4300 File Name PE43_RCU.EXE

http://support.dell.com/us/en/filelib/download/index.asp?fileid=r19750

 

[jepar]

Thanks again for your post.

The firmware flash did complete. However, before the flash, the flash utility saves the container configuration on the floppy. After the flash, it restores it from the floppy. The update failed during that restore process.

Currently, the PERC does not attempt to scan the bus. It does not even identify itself. Instead, after the backplane post, right when the it should post, the system hangs with the floppy spinning. The system does not hang if I remove the PERC.

Because the floppy spins, I thought that the controller was trying to load an image. Some RAID cards from AMI use that "failsafe" trick (load a BIOS upgrade from a floppy).

Maybe I updated using the wrong BIOS image or a corrupted one. I have never seen this kind of behavior before!

PS: I have since removed the PERC and bought an Adaptec RAID and rebuilt the system. All drives are fine. Performance is lower, after a reboot for example (no battery on that card).

 

[mholland88]

You last post make a lot more sense now. It has been a long time since I updated a firmware on the Perc II. I do not remember all the steps it goes through. I have never had it hang at that point during a firmware flash. You used the right firmware, otherwise it would of errored out in the beginning. There would be no way of knowing if the firmware flash was corupted. I have worked with Dell servers for over three years and I have never seen the Perc II do this before. I have had the firmware flash blow up but never at that point.

The normal Adaptec controllers from Dell, do have batteries on them. Adaptec makes quite a few different types of raid controllers, Im sure they also have one with out a battery which would make a big difference on your caching. Unless the Adaptec card is as old as the Perc II, its bus speed should be faster. The Perc II max speed is 40. The Adaptec controllers Dell sells max speed are either 80 or 160.

I am glad you are up and running

 

[Guest_imported]

sorry I couldn't help earlier, but I ran into the same
issue....or similar. I upgraded the driver to the card, upgraded the firmware, then the problem came...it wouldn't boot. Dell Tech support told me to reinstall the operating system. did that and everything worked.