Hey,

As happens more I have inherited a project of a client with limited IT resources and knowledge in house.

My client wanted to bring his R730xd back to newer fw and BIOS but thought he could jump from a very old BIOS into the latest one and hope for the best.

 

Result: an R730xd which hangs on POST with BIOS Version 2.12.1 on screen with iDRAC IP reporting as ....

However the iDRAC had been configured so it we can still connect to it and try to resolve everything from there.

In the iDRAC the system still reports 1.2.10 (weird, no?)

Tests done:

reset NVRam, remove BIOS battery

update to older BIOS from iDRAC => remains in the scheduled stated, planned reboot is done manually (because we cant get past the first screen in the post)

rollback to older BIOS from iDRAC => BIOS is not visible in the rollback list

Tried disconnecting everything but PerC, kept CPUs and memory in system

Currently the iDRAC reports the following when going into update or rollback:

SUP0108: A firmware update operation is already in progress. Wait for the update operation to conclude and then re-try.

After a few minutes, it goes away and we can access those details again (but the error returns some time later)

server information details from iDRAC:

BIOS Version	1.2.10
Firmware Version	2.75.100.75

Lifecycle Controller Firmware

2.75.100.75

iDRAC has been updated to 2.75.100.75 through iDRAC itself.

My idea is that somehow the BIOS update to 2.12.1 is in the backend still running, not showing in the queued jobs, but failing and preventing any other BIOS updates or rollback to be executed.

Maybe racadm can help, but the problem is that a BIOS update gets pushed into scheduled on next reboot and then remains there forever (even after several reboots, complete disconnects from power, etc )

I am now stuck with a problem which i didnt create but want to solve.

The unit is at the end of its 5 years warranty, I don't know if it can be extended or that we can solve this matter in another way