HP P410 Boot Loop after Firmware update

[Rozzy85]

I'm using a P410 Controller card in my desktop PC so I can use some SAS drives with it. The card is a pull from an old server and initially it worked fine being recognised by Windows. I then installed the drives (3x HGST 3TB) and while they were all recognised by the controller it was reading them as 0.0GB and I could not create a logical drive using them. I read online that the controller requires a firmware update (the card was running version 3.00) to recognise 2TB> drives so I downloaded the Online ROM Flash Utility (cp026512.exe) and ran it. It reported the update was successful and that a restart was required. After restarting the card gets to Initializing... XXX and then the system will reboot remaining in a boot loop until powered off.

Doing some more reading I've seen others mention that using this card in a non-HP server system will not work or may have issues such as this. I have several old Proliant's lying around so can put the card inside one of them to revert back to an older firmware. Is it possible to get this card working in a normal desktop with these 3TB drives using a specific firmware version or do I just forget it and buy a new controller card known to work?

 

[Rozzy85]

I already had a couple of these controllers lying around so wanted to give them a try first before buying something else. Just got around to trying out the suggestions. The tape mod didn't appear to do anything. Tried re-flashing to a slightly older version which allows the system to boot again but doesn't recognise the disks like before. Different PCI-E slots didn't work either so I'm out of luck with these cards I guess.

I'll look into a new LSI controller. Are there any particular models which are best to look out for that work well under both Windows and Linux?

 

[Rozzy85]

How many drives do you need? Any requirement for TRIM support or anything else special? I tend to go the other way (SAS>SATA) for my usage as it’s mechanical drives in a non IO heavy workload, so flashing something like a Dell H310 or H200 gives me 8xSATA rather than 4xSAS, at £20-30 a pop it’s cheap enough.

4 drives. No need for TRIM or anything else special. Speed isn't paramount so 3Gbps will suffice if slower controllers are cheaper.