I’ll try to keep a long story short.

 

I have 12 Dell PowerEdge R660 servers that I was updating with VMware ESXi patches. At the same time, I decided to apply Dell firmware updates through OpenManage. The updates included BIOS, BOSS, and NIC firmware for the three different NICs installed in these servers.

 

These servers were built with Secure Boot enabled. Side note: I would not recommend using Secure Boot unless you absolutely have to.

 

After the firmware updates completed, I was watching the iDRAC virtual console and saw the following error during boot:

R660 UEFI0072: Unable to load the firmware from the device Integrated NIC 1 Port 1 Partition 1 because of the Secure Boot Policy

I can press F1 to continue past the error, and the server boots normally afterward. However, it will not continue past this message without manual intervention.

 

I have been working with Dell Support for several weeks, with most of the testing being done on my end. I have updated the BIOS, iDRAC, and NIC firmware using the versions available on Dell’s support site for my service tag. One thing I noticed is that the updates did not always appear under the Maintenance tab in iDRAC.

 

I have also fully removed power from the server for five minutes, but that made no difference. At this point, I have tried nearly everything I can think of without success.

 

Dell Support’s next recommendation is to reseat the network card in question. I am willing to try that, but I strongly suspect this is actually an issue with the NIC firmware key, certificate, or signature not being accepted by the BIOS Secure Boot policy.

 

I also tried disabling Secure Boot, but ESXi then booted to a Purple Screen of Death, so disabling Secure Boot is not a viable option.

 

Has anyone run into this issue before, or does anyone have suggestions on what else to check?