How to flash the firmware of your LSI RAID controller, using MegaCLI on a DOS boot USB drive
It dawned on me that folks may want to flash the firmware of their LSI RAID controller before they get started with installing an operating system on that system. It's actually pretty easy to create the required USB boot media from a Windows system using Rufus for free, here's the simple steps.
:
The executable is digitally signed and the signature should state:
“Akeo Consulting” (v1.3.0 or later)
“Pete Batard – Open Source Developer” (v1.2.0 or earlier)
Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility (with Source), read the introduction, FAQ, and support forum.
There are many methods I’ve used to create bootable media over the last decade or so. I’ve settled on Rufus recently, which has the following advantages:
- free
- simple GUI
- can be run from an EXE that doesn’t require any installation
- doesn’t require careful attention to command line partitioning commands that can be a bit dangerous
- much faster than other methods, takes under a minute to follow my instructions below
- seems to work, every time, back on Windows XP, right through Windows 8.1
2) Use Rufus to create boot media:
Insert a USB drive, and choose the following settings carefully, click Start.
3) Download LSI MegaCLI and Firmware ROM files
Visit this site
http://www.lsi.com/support/Pages/Download-Results.aspx?keyword=
and type in your model in the keyword field.
For example, on Dec 04 2013, for my LSI 9265-8i RAID controller, here's the site I typed 9265, it gave me:
lsi.com/support/Pages/Download-Results.aspx?keyword=9265
and here's the only 2 tiny files I needed to grab, from the "Firmware" section:
then from the "Management Software and Tools" section:
inside each zip file, you'll find the files you need to copy to the root of the USB key, for me, the filename and paths looked exactly like this:
\8.07.07_MegaCLI.zip\DOS\MegaCLI.exe
\23.18.0-0014_SAS_FW_IMAGE_APP_3.290.15-2935.zip\mr2208fw.rom
4) Boot the system that has the LSI RAID adapter from the USB key, chose the USB media for this boot
It'll quickly drop you to an MS-DOS command prompt, ready for you to type the following exact command (then hit 'Enter')
MegaCli -adpfwflash -f mr2208fw.rom -a0
Alternatively you can copy that one line into an autoexec.bat file you create on the root of the USB drive, for an unattended, automatic flashing of your LSI.
The actual flashing takes a minute or two. Then you're done, and it'll tell you so, seen below. You're now ready to reboot your system, where on most systems, you can watch carefully to see that your LSI adapter is at the new level of firmware.
