# Error installing freebsd on a dell perc H730p system



## simeo (Sep 19, 2020)

I attach two pictures of a machine with a dell perc H730p raid card. Since a while is has been working with it without any problem, but after a power outage we weren't able to recover system and we had to retrieve copies.

The problem is we can't install from a fresh freeBSD 12.1, we also tried 11.1-11.4 and 10.3 without any success.

System is now running but we had to attach hds direct to system and made a mirror zpool with ZFS.

Let me know if you need more info o try something
Thanks


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## richardtoohey2 (Sep 20, 2020)

Looks like something has gone wrong on the RAID controller itself - the MFI driver is possibly just reporting what it is getting told?

These are all similar messages - not looked for exactly the same as you are getting - just the general class of message/issue:






						Fatal Firmware Error on Integrated PERC5/i
					

I have an integrated PERC5/i controller on a PE2950.  The server crashed yesterday with nothing in the logs before the crash.  After the server came back up, the following error was in the system log:   Event Type: Error Event Source: Server Administrator Event Category: Storage Service Event...




					www.dell.com
				











						Fatal firmware error installing RHEL8.0 with PERC H730P
					

Hi, I have an R440 and R540, with a similar configuration of PERC H730P, 2x 1TB SSD in RAID1. PERC firmware is 25.5.6.0009 on both. I didn't have any issues installing RHEL8.0 on R540, but I'm getting a fatal firmware error, followed by I/O errors on R440.  I zeroed both SSDs with dd without...




					www.dell.com
				








						Dell 1950 Crashing Intermittently Event ID 2336
					

I have a old PowerEdge 1950 Server that I'm trying to repurpose.  I have gone through and attempted to make sure that the BIOS and any underlying hardware firmware have been updated.  I've installed Server 2012 R2 and there is an AV running.  When the AV does a daily quick scan the server will...




					www.dell.com
				




Search for "fatal firmware error dell perc" and there's more.

It's not OS-specific - it's the RAID controller itself that's unhappy.


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## simeo (Sep 20, 2020)

I agree. In fact, we no longer buy any server with a raid controller. NO matter what the board makers say, in the end it's a software raid. It is not a "foolproof" hardware solution as many think.

Besides, as we already use in all ZFS servers we do not need a raid, we mount it via a zpool mirror. In fact it is counterproductive to mount a zpool mirror on a "hardware" raid, zfs loses a lot of information and cannot do its job correctly. (1*)

What made me doubt is the error in the controller driver, as can be seen in the image. I think the power failure did not sit well with the controller and it has not recovered, but hey, I preferred to report the error just in case.


(1*) FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS, chapter 0


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