Looking for PCI Controller firmware dump utility.

[Dr. Bob]

Hi.

I'm looking for a utility with which I can dump the firmware of a Silicon Image 3512 based PCI SATA RAID controller to a file which will be suitable for flashing it back again if I want to do that. It's more difficult to find than I expected. These controllers are currently being sold with firmware version 4.3.43 from 2003. The latest version on the Silicon Image site is 4.3.84 from 2007. They also have older versions there but not as far back as the one I want.

I have two of these controllers and one I flashed with that latest version. Although in all likelihood I will end up using that latest version in both I would like to be able to check its functioning against the 'original' firmware. Unfortunately the manufacturer's 'support' doesn't extend to firmware. Only drivers. If I want to compare them now I need to swap the cards and without firmware I do not yet want to flash the second one too because without that firmware in a file I won't be able to get it back to that old version once I've updated it.

Any help will be appreciated.

[Steve R Jones]

Quick Question: Are the controllers NOT doing something that you think an update will fix?

Often times, newer doesn't mean better

[Dr. Bob]

Yes. With the .43 firmware it halted the boot process at the controller BIOS reporting the drives when my 1TB WD10EADS (Green) drive was connected to it. Same as with an on-board 3512 controller with version .33 which had no problems with my two 640 MB WD6401AALS (Black) drives in RAID 1. With the .84 firmware that is solved and the 1TB drive can be used. With the new firmware Partition Magic 8 complained about drive geometry and marked the drive as BAD although XP's drive manager reported no problems and the drive seems to work OK. Reformatting under the new firmware possibly/probably solved that. Since the MoBo manufacturer (Gigabyte) hasn't released any newer BIOS after the .33 version I made a new BIOS myself with the latest 3512 FW (.84) using CBROM. As I said I probably will end up using the new FW. Then all versions used will be the same, but it is just sensible to retain the option to compare its functioning with the old one. I cannot be certain the manufacturer didn't make any (perhaps necessary for different HW-design?) alterations to the FW that aren't in the generic Silicon Image ones.

I want to use one card for a system that has no SATA ports. Just two regular IDE and two from the on-board Highpoint 372 RAID controller on which I run a RAID-1 array and the other one to add two extra SATA ports on that Gigabyte system that has only 2 SATA ports. It now has 4 controller BIOSes reporting during booting instead of 3 - The on-board 3512 SATA RAID which will have the 640 Black RAID-1 array, The PCI 3512 SATA RAID that I can make into eSATA with a SATA to eSATA bracket, the on-board ITE 8212 IDE RAID and the PCI Adaptec 2930 SCSI controller so booting takes some time. Not too big a problem because I usually hibernate which compensates a bit for the delay.