Question Problem with LSI MegaRaid SAS 9285CV-8E Controller on Windows 10 PC ?

[Nidhal13]

Hello everyone,

I hope you are doing well. It is my first post here in TomsHardware, so please bear with me if I did something wrong.

Here is the small story of my problem. I recently got multiple SAS drives from a friend, and I want to use them as an external storage solution. I knew that my MSI MAG B560 TORPEDO motherboard didn't support SAS drives. Thus, I decided to acquire an LSI MegaRAID SAS 9285CV-8E Controller in order to connect these SAS drives to my computer. I connected this controller into my second PCIe port and I (externally) connected the controller to the SAS hard drive via an SFF8088 to SFF8482 cable.

Unfortunately, all of my effort were in vain, since nothing happens. It seems like the controller is not recognised by Windows and not even by my motherboard. I tried to install some 'Server Manager Application' in order to make this controller and the disc drive appear, but still no luck.

I would like to ask the community if somebody has encountered the same problem in the past or if someone who is specialised in this field could help me understand what is the problem and how I can resolve it.

Thank you in advance for all of your answer!

 

[faalin]

Watch during your computer bootup there should be an option to boot into the card think its CTRL+H. Once inside the raid card you will be able to link the drives to the card. Once that is done, when you boot into windows the drives should show up.

Note your boot time will take longer with the raid card and drives, also note that during the boot sequence it will tell you what drives are attached to the card once you have set them up.

 

[Misgar]

It seems like the controller is not recognised by Windows and not even by my motherboard. I

I'm suspicious of the fact your motherboard's BIOS isn't detecting the LSI card and Windows isn't loading a driver. I've not had any problems with various LSI HBA SAS controllers, running under Windows 10. Drop the card into a slot, switch on, Windows loads a driver. Done.

Since your card was released in 2014, there's a vague chance you might need to enable CSM in your BIOS, but this might conflict with UEFI. Some of my older motherboards allow CSM First, UEFI second and vice versa. They also allow CSM-only or UEFI-only. You can install Windows 10 under CSM or UEFI, but it often means a fresh installation.

Disconnect your boot drive and check the BIOS for any CSM settings and enable if present. Save the BIOS and restart. You might then see the Option ROM message from the LSI card appear, but only if you've disabled the full screen MSI logo nonsense at startup. Whether or not you can still boot a UEFI Windows SSD with CSM enabled is a different matter. When the tests are over, restore the boot option and reconnect your boot drive. You may find you need CSM for the LSI card, but Windows won't boot if UEFI is disabled.

Until you're sure the mobo's BIOS is detecting the LSI card's BIOS (option ROM), Windows will not see the card or the disk drives and won't load a driver. That's your first hurdle.

Unless you intend to set up a RAID array in the LSI card, you may not have to enter the LSI BIOS with Ctrl-H, Ctrl-S, or whatever. However, to make individual disks visible, as opposed to grouping them all together in a single RAID array, you might need to set up each disk in its own individual RAID0 array (see below).

If you want to access disks individually, I think you need a card running in IT-mode (Initiator Target) as opposed to IR-mode (RAID).

A hardware IR-Mode controller sometimes gets in the way of specific commands and disk reporting features, whereas an Initiator Target BIOS allows transparent movement of commands and monitoring data between disk and computer. People running TrueNAS Core and other server OS run their LSI cards in IT-mode, not IR-mode.

If your LSI card BIOS is running in IR-mode, it may be possible to flash the firmware over to IT-mode. This can be be relatively easy or virtually impossible. It took me two days to flash a couple of Dell PERC H200 cards over to LSI IT-mode firmware. Other boards are easy.

Serve the Home forums are a good place to start reading about LSI controllers.
https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...and-hba-complete-listing-plus-oem-models.599/

 

[Nidhal13]

Watch during your computer bootup there should be an option to boot into the card think its CTRL+H. Once inside the raid card you will be able to link the drives to the card. Once that is done, when you boot into windows the drives should show up.

Note your boot time will take longer with the raid card and drives, also note that during the boot sequence it will tell you what drives are attached to the card once you have set them up.

First of all, thank you very much for your quick answer !
I tested your method by pressing CTRL+H, but I did not receive any feedback from the BIOS or any change in the booting system 😕😕.