PSA: Read this before you upgrade your firmware on your 12th Generation Dell Servers
I wanted to put together a guide for new owners of 12th Generation Dell servers. Over the course of owning few 12th Generation Dell Servers (Rx20), I have come across few common issues encountered during firmware upgrades and I wanted to share my advice on overcoming them. iDRAC Firmware It’s very important to observe caution while upgrading iDRAC Firmwares to prevent issues like this, this, this and this. When these 12th Generation servers were shipped, the iDRAC and LifeCycle controller had different firmware. In Late 2014, Dell has decided to integrate the iDRAC and LifeCycle Controller firmwares into a single package called “Dell iDRAC with LifeCycle Controller” and the firmware is now common across iDRAC 7 and iDRAC8. The partition layout for the iDRAC eMMC was changed, due to which upgrades across legacy firmwares and the latest firmwares were failing, which was causing iDRAC to be permanently bricked with no resolution except for a motherboard replacement as of now. 2.10.10.10,A00 was the first firmware release for Dell iDRAC with LifeCycle Controller. If your iDRAC version is higher than 2.10.10.10, then you could directly upgrade to the latest version of the iDRAC firmware without running into any issues. As of writing, 2.61.60.60 is the latest iDRAC firmware. If your iDRAC version is lower then 2.10.10.10, DON’T UPGRADE TO THE LATEST VERSION OF THE iDRAC. UPGRADE YOUR FIRMWARE TO 1.66.65,A00 (LAST STANDALONE FIRMWARE) AND THEN UPGRADE TO 2.10.10.10,A00 (FIRST RELEASE OF COMMON FIRMWARE) AFTER WHICH YOU COULD DIRECTLY UPGRADE TO THE LATEST FIRMWARE AVAILABLE. ...