Creating this post for future reference because I can never really remember how to firmware upgrade my raid card LSI MegaRAID SAS 9240-8i, which is now a LSI MegaRAID SAS 9211-8i.

Basically this guide is a rewrite of this forum post.

1. Created a standard bootable DOS USB Flash Drive.
2. Download the firmware tools (local mirror) and extract MegaRec.exe and empty.bin to the USB drive.
3. Download the latest 9211-8i firmware.
4. Copy the following files to the USB drive:
   – 2118it.bin
   – sas2flsh.exe (DOS-version)
   – mptsas2.rom
5. Boot from USB.
6. Backup current sbr with megarec -readsbr 0 backup.sbr
7. Write an empty sbr with megarec -writesbr 0 empty.bin
8. Erase controller flash with megarec -cleanflash 0
9. Restart machine and boot from USB again.
10. Set controller to 6GB/s mode with sas2flsh -o -e 6
11. This process will ask for the firmware file. Write 2118it.bin
12. Flash the controller with the new firmware with IT-mode with sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom
13. Program SAS address in IT-mode where 500605b********* is the code on the green sticker on your RAID card without the “-” with sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500605b*********

Done for this time! Enjoy your reflashed LSI 9240-8i which is now an LSI 9211-8i!

If you ever need to update the firmware, you can do it like this on (for example) FreeBSD:

1. Download the latest firmware and installer package from LSI.
2. Flash with ./sas2flash -o -f 2118it.bin