Unable to upgrade iDRAC 7 from 2.21.21.

Question

Hi there,I've got a PowerEdge R320, great deal, £70 for an E5-2450, 48gb ram, dedicated enterprise iDRAC, both 350w PSU's and 3TB HDDs with a raid controller. However, I'm having lots of trouble when I'm running into updating the iDRAC firmware. I'm a bit of a neat freak so I'd really love everything to be as up-to-date as possible and I've gone through countless steps trying to fix this. Right now, It's on version 2.21.21. I haven't had any trouble updating the BIOS firmware but I have now rolled it back to its original 2.4.2 from having updated it to 2.9.0 . I have installed Windows Server 2012 R2 on it to try and get it to install from there but still no hope. I don't actually get that much of an error message when i do it, but its usually RED004. I've had a couple times where I've tried and the website comes up with iDRAC 8 instead of iDRAC7. I have also tried hard resetting it with the command:racadm racreset hard -f Although this works to get iDRAC back into it's regular state after the firmware update going weird, trying again just gives similar errors and I have tried updating via the web page. This has been trying to upgrade to 2.30.30 and 2.65.65 I believe. Any help is much appreciated!

vapouryh · Accepted Answer

Hi Joey,Today is the day it happened!I successfully updated the iDRAC firmware to 2.65.65.65 from 2.21.21.21.Firstly, I'd like to say thank you for your help in troubleshooting the situation and sticking with me throughout this nightmare.After having tried every method under the sun, iDRAC would still not update. Luckily, I found a great guy on YouTube (shoutout to him) going over his steps to fix a bricked iDRAC. Luckily, in my situation my iDRAC wasn't necessarily 'bricked'; iDRAC had no problem working even after the hundred failed firmware update attempts that I had tried. Although my situation wasn't exactly like his, the methods used to try and treat a bricked iDRAC managed to treat mine as well.So these are the steps I took to fix this problem (For an R320 or similar) Just to be said, I am not a qualified electrician. These are purely the steps I took to overcome this problem:You will need:USB UART device, one capable of 3.3v. (Cheap from Amazon)Soldering ironSD Card in the FAT format loaded with the firmware.d7 file in the root folder.iDRAC Enterprise cardSpare PC or Laptop with PuTTY installed.Make sure you export your iDRAC license. This can be done by the web GUI. If necessary also export you iDRAC settings as this will completely wipe all iDRAC configuration.On the motherboard there will be a BMC_UART port right next to the rear I/O of the MB. The connection pinout is: R320 (or similar) BMC_UARTFunctionPin 1 (Square Pad)Vdd (3.3v)Pin 2TxPin 3RxPin 4GNDSolder 4 jumper wires onto the board and connect them to the USB UART dongle as followed. Make sure the server is off!Connect to the serial port in PuTTY with your COM interface (if you're unsure what interface to use, check device manager) with a baudrate of 115200 using TELNET. Now you can boot the server. If those steps were successful, you should now see the uboot process of the server. If it has booted successfully, you should be greeted with a linux shell but in this situation we wont be needing that. Although it's a good idea to test your UART wiring so you are able to send text to the console.This next step can be a bit tricky. You now need a paperclip or anything else you can use to short a switch on the MB. The switch is located near the large silver heatsink, named SW2. To reboot the system, short switch 1. Now this is the tricky part - quickly switch over and short switch 2 while spamming any key in the console. If you are lucky, you will see the uboot process has been interrupted and you now have an iDRAC prompt. It will look something like: iDRAC 7/8=With the FAT formatted SD card loaded with the fimware image, run: util recover -emmc -from sd -f firmimg.d7 -noreset -clean If you are successful, it should have erased the EMMC and installed the new firmware. You can now unplug the server when it's safe to do so and drain the power by holding the power button down for 30 seconds. Unfortunately if you were unsuccessful, you may have a bad EMMC chip, I have read that these can go bad from perhaps too many write cycles.When booting up, you may or may not have the lifecycle controller telling you an update is required or spit out a firmware error. This is ok, just reboot the server a couple times and it should return to normal. Boot into the lifecycle controller and click 'about' in the top right corner. Voila! The iDRAC firmware should now be up-to-date! To restore the iDRAC license, go to the Platform Restore section and import the license. You will need a USB stick with your exported license on it. You can now unsolder the BMC_UART connection if you wish and uninstall the SD Card from the iDRAC Card.Here is a labelled photo of the MB to guide you: Here are the forums that helped me:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvSDNAi39YY&ab_channel=JunctionRunner https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/bsou3n/dell_r520_idrac_7_swc0700_and_idrac8_prompt/ https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/a49b4y/r720_idrac_help/ https://winraid.level1techs.com/t/problem-dell-r720xd-idrac-bios-recovery/32658/95 Many Thanks!

DELL-Joey C · Answer

Hi @vapouryh,

It's good to have the mindset to get the server up-to-date firmware. When you had the iDRAC, was it all while on 2.21? Try updating the BIOS to 2.5.1, then update the iDRAC version 2.30.

Is the iDRAC working as expected? As in there is no error accessing it via web GUI?

Before you do the updates, try removing all power cables from PSU, press and hold the power button for 15secs. Install the power cables, wait for 2-3 minutes for the iDRAC to boot. Then power on the server. What is the file you have downloaded for iDRAC? Would it be the 64bit file?

Have you tried updating it via Lifecycle Controller?

vapouryh · Answer

Hi Joey,

Thanks for your reply.

I have updated the BIOS now to 2.5.1. The iDRAC has worked as expected ever since I have purchased it but just fails to update the firmware. No problems at all accessing it through the web GUI. I have downloaded the 64bit MS versions as well as extracting the .d7 payload. I have tried updating it through the Lifecycle Controller a couple times, no luck though.

vapouryh · Answer

Trying to update it via the web GUI but from a http address does not work either as I get an error acessing the network share: downloads.dell.com.

I have also tried using Dell DRM version 3.0.0 (as my R320 wasn't listed in the latest verisons) to create a bootable ISO. Attached is a photo of that result:

dell drm iso result.JPG

DELL-Joey C · Answer

Hi @vapouryh,

That's odd that it fails.

You did use the .exe file without extracting the contents to upload it into Lifecycle Controller via USB right? https://dell.to/3pgVRgr

When you used Dell HTTP site, was the test connection failed?

Just to confirm, it's this file:

iDRAC-with-Lifecycle-Controller_Firmware_JHF76_WN64_2.30.30.30_A00.EXE

https://dell.to/3LzjS9S

vapouryh · Answer

Hi Joey,

Yes, to confirm I did upload the unextracted .exe file to the Lifecycle Controller with a USB Stick.

Trying to access updates on the Lifecycle controller from the HTTP site wouldn't work either.

DELL-Joey C · Answer

Hi @vapouryh,

Have you tried removing the iDRAC port card, change the iDRAC IP to shared LOM and try to update the iDRAC firmware?

This step is a little risky, have you tried downgrading the iDRAC firmware to 2.20 or 2.15? Then try to update it to 2.30. I said risky cause if you successfully downgrade it to 2.20, but not able to update it from 2.20, hence you're at lower than 2.21. This is just a thought, as troubleshooting.

I don't think there is anything else to try, as you have already done all of what I can think of.

vapouryh · Answer

Hi Joey,

Sorry for the late response.

At the moment I have begun trying to attempt installing every one of the updates since 2.21.21.21

I have not tried uninstalling the port card or changing the iDRAC IP to shared LOM. Could you please run me through these two steps as I am unsure of how to do them.

I have tried to rollback on the firmware which was unfortunately unsuccessful.

Quick Q: Is the iDRAC firmware on the iDRAC card / enterprise card? or on the mobo?

Many Thanks.

DELL-Joey C · Answer

Hi @vapouryh,

Before you remove the iDRAC Enterprise port card, you may need to access to BIOS to set the iDRAC IP to shared. Then select the LOM no# that you have. After you have done that, check if iDRAC is accessible. If yes, then remove the iDRAC port card.

The iDRAC firmware is on the mainboard. The iDRAC Enterprise card is to only make the port to be dedicated.

If rolling back the firmware is having issue too, that makes me think that the iDRAC is somehow faulty, although you can use it but the firmware on the iDRAC has a chipset that is unable to install firmware.

vapouryh · Answer

Hi Joey,

iDRAC works fine on shared LOM. Took the enterprise card out, tried again in a few various ways including the firming.d7 via the web UI, updating through Win Serv 2012 R2 (My OS), usb stick from front panel and then on the lifecycle controller. I have gone back to BIOS version 2.4.2 as people have said that iDRAC should be the first thing to be updated and BIOS ver 2.5.1 I believe was a few years newer than the release date of the current iDRAC firmware. As for rolling back on the iDRAC, would trying to downgrade it to before it started having updates with lifecycle at the same time be a good idea?

However, I have noticed that updating using USB stick on the lifecycle controller sometimes after clearing the power and hard resetting iDRAC does get much further than previous attempts but unfortunately reboots with lifecycle controller disabled in which it then reboots again and comes back to life. This sort of leads me to believe that the lifecycle controller doesn't want to update with iDRAC? They are both on the same firmware although they do have different build numbers.

I have seen that installing an SD card with the firmimg.d7 file in the iDRAC card may work?

I have also checked the service tag and the server was first purchased back in 2015 I believe which does match up with when each firmware version has last been updated (all 2015).

DELL-Joey C · Answer

Hi @vapouryh,

As for rolling back on the iDRAC, would trying to downgrade it to before it started having updates with lifecycle at the same time be a good idea?

Yeah, iDRAC and Lifecycle Controller shares the same firmware, hence there won't be any issues.

This sort of leads me to believe that the lifecycle controller doesn't want to update with iDRAC?

This lead me thinking iDRAC might be faulty.

I have seen that installing an SD card with the firmimg.d7 file in the iDRAC card may work?

Worth a try.

PowerEdge Hardware General

Unable to upgrade iDRAC 7 from 2.21.21.

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R320 (or similar) BMC_UART	Function
Pin 1 (Square Pad)	Vdd (3.3v)
Pin 2	Tx
Pin 3	Rx
Pin 4	GND