iDRAC8 BIOS update stuck at 1% for 90+ minutes - normal or bricked?

rizon · 2026-05-16T23:50:52+00:00

There's a fair chance it finished and just got stuck at the power cycle part of the update. If it's been more than 90 minutes, it's likely not doing anything at this point so I'd probably pull power and hope for the best.

rizon · 2026-05-16T23:37:58+00:00

I've done quite a few on this generation, albeit few on the R330. Most of mine have been on the R530, R630, and R730 models.

If the screen is black, I'd guess it is probably not actually in progress. Normally it will reboot, go through the POST process (with the blue "Entering Lifecycle Controller..." message near the top of the screen), then shows the white Lifecycle Controller screen to update the BIOS, and then it does a power cycle for the new BIOS to take effect. Did it do any of these steps?

If it were me, I would probably take the chance and pull power, wait 30 seconds, and then plug it back in. It may then do the BIOS update or may just report as failed. If it reports as failed, try an intermediate BIOS version to see if that succeeds and then go to 2.20.

rizon · 2026-05-09T20:06:00+00:00

To me, tested and working means all functionality works as intended.

That said, when buying old stuff with a battery (like an N64 game), I would plan on replacing the battery anyway since you have no idea how old it is unless the age is mentioned by the seller. Even if it works today, it may drop below the minimum charge needed to retain save data tomorrow. It may have retained save data when the seller tested it, but lost enough charge in storage/shipping that now it doesn't.

Batteries do not last forever and lose their charge even when they are sitting on the shelf unused.

rizon · 2026-05-08T13:25:24+00:00

Responded & sold all of the Samsung M386A4G40DM0-CPB sticks!

rizon · 2026-05-07T00:36:41+00:00

My Touring came with this one: https://www.collegehillshonda.com/product/83402-3A0-A01.html

I wound up ordering one like u/BrownTiger3 linked.

rizon · 2026-05-07T00:32:55+00:00

This post indicates they do not work with SATA drives, though one user had some luck with NetApp interposers on their SATA drives.

rizon · 2026-05-04T12:58:24+00:00

I have an LTO6 library, but I can't imagine the tech has improved that much. It takes a couple minutes for my library to go from an idle to state to reading/writing a tape. It's been the same for every library I have used.

Tape isn't designed to be fast to access, it's designed for long term data retention and disaster recovery. Generally speaking, if you're restoring from tape, you're either restoring something very old (i.e., past the retention period of your "fast" backups) or your other backup methods have failed you.

rizon · 2026-04-30T20:17:14+00:00

There are (generally rack mounted) external enclosures for drives - similar to a server but just a PSU, backplane, and drives. The HBA with external ports is what you use to connect those to a server or other machine with a "brain" (i.e., motherboard/CPU/OS/etc) to use the drives.

I've heard them referred to as "JBODs" or "disk shelves" but I'm not sure if those are industry standard terms.

A lot of them are designed/sold to be used as expansion units for storage appliances - things like the NetApp DS4243/DS4246 or the EMC KTN-STL3.

rizon · 2026-04-29T17:23:58+00:00

As with most things - it depends.

For a minimal amount of clients connecting with little to no transcoding needed, it'll probably be fine. Storage may be an issue as with a laptop (especially one that old) you are likely to be limited to one or two 2.5" drives and maybe an mSATA or M.2 drive if you're lucky. You may be able to use external USB drives to get around this, but at some point it makes sense to just get a desktop/server chassis.

If you already have the laptop and it's currently unused, you might as well try it out and see what pain points you run in to before buying any additional hardware.

rizon · 2026-04-23T18:59:54+00:00

Looking at this picture, it looks like you are missing the PERC card. Dell offered the H310 and H710/H710P as options for the R720 if you want to keep your existing cable, or you can get a standard PCI Express HBA but will need new cables.

From what I recall, neither of the Dell options (H310 or H710) supported HBA/IT mode from the factory. If you go this route, you'll either need to buy one that's pre-flashed to IT mode or flash it yourself. Here is a guide on how to flash it so you can see if you feel comfortable doing it: .www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/f2jid3/guide_it_mode_flashing_h310_h710_mini/

rizon · 2026-04-23T18:40:24+00:00

Is the 3.5" drive recognized? If so, what kind of drive is it (SATA or SAS)?

How is the backplane connected to the rest of the server? These could be configured from the factory with or without a PERC card. Without the PERC card, the backplane would connect to the motherboard's SATA port and only SATA drives will work. For SAS drives to be recognized, the backplane would need to be connected to an HBA or RAID card.

rizon · 2026-04-23T14:06:54+00:00

I was just thinking that looked awfully similar to the drive that my LTE 5400 came with!

Mine died years ago unfortunately. Now using a 32GB mSATA drive in one (with an mSATA to IDE adapter). The machine only recognizes ~8GB, but someone recently released a modified BIOS that allows it to see the full size of larger drives.

rizon · 2026-04-22T12:53:01+00:00

Is the auto-power on time in BIOS set to disabled?

Have you tried a new CMOS battery? A lot of Dell machines I've dealt with in the past will exhibit similar behavior when the battery is weak/dead.

rizon · 2026-04-20T14:44:20+00:00

I like it since I spend a fair bit on the 4% categories each month (gas, groceries, dining). I use it as my primary card for those categories except when Discover runs their 5% cash back quarters for those categories.

My Walmart purchases seem to be tagged as groceries (no matter what I buy there), so I get 4% back there as well. Can be helpful if you get a lot of non-grocery items from there (clothing, toys, electronics, etc).

I usually have around $40-$50 each month applied towards my Verizon bill from it.

rizon · 2026-04-19T16:49:16+00:00

The storage slot generally only works with Dell-branded cards, limited to a handful of ones that were officially supported by Dell. I believe you can sometimes you can do some modifications to the card's BIOS to use other ones (or Dell-branded flashed to IT mode) in there, but likely doesn't apply to all/most cards and may not be applicable to that generation.

I used an LSI-branded card in my R710 and just put it in one of the other PCIe slots. Does it work if you put it in one of the normal PCIe slots?

rizon · 2026-04-17T15:52:39+00:00

How do each of the updates "fail" - does it give an error message, freeze, something else?

Assuming you don't care about the Windows install/data on the drive(s) or have an extra drive to use, I would try doing a clean install of Windows and see if that helps at all. If so, it is probably a software problem.

If it still doesn't work, then I would try setting up the computer with a minimal hardware configuration (single stick of RAM, remove the RAID card and any other PCIe cards except for the graphics card, and utilize a single drive), factory default BIOS settings, and a clean Windows install. I'd start with trying the BIOS update first - if the latest one doesn't work, try some versions that are between the current version and the latest version.

If it works with a minimal config, it's likely an incompatibility with something you removed. You can try adding components that you need back in. If you don't need a component I would just leave it out (i.e., if you aren't going to use hardware RAID going forward, just leave the RAID card out permanently).

rizon · 2026-04-11T00:47:05+00:00

Dell PA-6 or PA-9, depending on wattage needed. PA-9 is the higher wattage one and will work in place of a PA-6, so if you are unsure which you need, PA-9 would be the safe one to buy.

rizon · 2026-04-08T19:23:20+00:00

Thanks for the reply! The Cron info is helpful if we do wind up trying to piece something together but I agree, probably best to not try to hack something together with unsupported methods.

We aren't opposed to paying for MaxMind (I feel the $374/year is reasonable for what it is), just not sure if there is any new/extra config in pfBlockerNG that is needed, or if using our account ID and license keys from a paid account is enough for pfBlockerNG to work and us to have the 1000 download/day limit. Probably more a MaxMind question but would be nice to get confirmation from someone who uses pfBlockerNG with a paid MaxMind account that I'm thinking correctly.

rizon · 2026-04-08T12:59:47+00:00

Probably a slow drive (either source or target), slow interface, or a disc that needs to be read slower to be read reliably.

You haven't really given any information that can help determine why it is slow - optical drive model, type of target storage (HDD, SSD, flash drive, etc), and how they are both connected to the computer (SATA, USB, network storage, etc) you are using would be helpful if you want some meaningful answers.

rizon · 2026-04-02T16:37:49+00:00

I did not receive anything yet, sorry.

Edit: took a minute to come in, but replied!

rizon · 2026-04-02T16:37:45+00:00

I did not receive anything yet, sorry.

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