HackAAPL: Hacking Apple Products

UPDATE LATE 2015: In order to flash some OEM vendors such as a LSI/Avago 2308 IR controller on a Dell T7610 you wish to flash to IT mode from it’s default IR mode, you should use the downloads from Supermircro instead of trying to get them directly from LSI/Avago; Please note, it also behooves you to use “Rufus” to create a FreeDos 1.22 USB key (and then if you are a Windows user you can use Rufus to DD the FreeDos 1.22 “IMG” file to your USB key. Once this is complete you should extract the download from SuperMicro, boot the FreeDOS USB key (leaving default menu option #1), and then run Supermicro’s BATCH file “.BAT” which will automatically flash your system for you. Specific links and more to follow in future

Many OEM PCs such as Dell come with built-in RAID controllers by LSI. Google your RAID controller as is presented on the BIOS POST screen, and then proceed to LSI’s website and go to the Support/Downloads section. Here you should download the latest firmware/BIOS, and optionally EFI code for your controller. After downloading and extracting the archive you will have a folder likely titled “Firmware” containing two different files, one labeled IR and one labeled IT. The IR stands for Integrated RAID support and allows RAID function, while the IT version supports basically pass-through support (which can improve performance in cases where you are not using RAID).

1. If you are currently running an “IR” firmware version and wish to change to the “IT” version, you may do the following:
2. Download the tool Rufus to create a USB bootable key running FreeDOS.
3. Copy the Firmware folder extracted to the USB key
4. Reboot your System and select whatever prompt necessary (usually F8/F11/F12 – depending on OEM vendor), to enter a boot selection menu.
5. Boot from the USB key
6. After booting the USB key you should run the sas2flsh.exe utility under the DOS folder as follows.
7. First you must erase the existing flash and BIOS from your RAID controller *PLEASE NOTE* DO NOT REBOOT UNTIL RE-FLASHING AFTER ERASING THE FIRMWARE.
8. In order to erase the running flash/bios on the RAID controller you must run:sas2flsh -o -e 6 (newer versions for AVAGO/LSI controllers 9300 use: sas3flsh -o -e 6) 
9. Next you should run sas2flsh to install your new/desired firmware files and IT/IR desired version, for example (in the case of a Dell T7610 with an LSI 9217-8i controller you can run the following to change from IR to IT mode:sas2flsh -o -f 9027-8.bin -b mptsas2.rom (newer versions for AVAGO/LSI controllers eg. 9300 series use: sas3flsh -o -f 9300-8.bin -b mptsas3.rom) 
10. You can run the following, to check not he RAID controller status (and confirm this has been applied), and finally reboot (CTL-ALT-DEL).

sas2flsh -listall (or sas3flsh -listall)