How to upgrade iDRAC firmware and BIOS of Dell PowerEdge R510?

Question

I have a Dell PowerEdge R510 with iDRAC Enterprise:

• System Model: PowerEdge R510
• System Revision: II
• Service Tag: 70BMGS1
• Express Service Code: 15257000305
• BIOS Version: 1.8.2
• Firmware Version: 1.80 (Build 17)
• Lifecycle Controller Firmware: 1.5.1.57

I want to upgrade the BIOS and the iDRAC firmware. I fed it each of these files from Dell's R510 downloads page (iDRAC Settings -> Firmware Update on the web UI), but each time, it came back with "File is not valid for iDRAC Firmware update":

• ESM_Firmware_MXKG2_LN32_2.91_A00.BIN
• ESM_Firmware_NVJ9K_LN32_1.90_A00.BIN
• iDRAC6_1.85_A00_FW_IMG.exe
• R510_BIOS_PYCXX_WN64_1.14.0.EXE
• R510_ESM_Firmware_F8T9F_WN32_1.92_A00.EXE

Based on Dell forums, I should do a staged update, but 1.85 is the oldest version of what I think is the iDRAC firmware available on Dell's site.

For newer servers like R620 and R630, I was able to just feed the iDRAC any firmware file from Dell's website (BIOS or iDRAC or otherwise) and it figured out what to do with it. Any idea how I should perform the upgrade?

Solution

As shown in the training video in section 4 of the support article Dell PowerEdge: How to a Remote Firmware Update with the iDRAC?, you must manually unzip iDRAC6_1.85_A00_FW_IMG.exe and upload the actual image file firmimg.d6 to the iDRAC. The more recent iDRAC models can accept the executable file directly and unzip it themselves, but apparently the iDRAC 6 can't.

Comments

[Easter Sunshine]

The reason I haven't tried the OMSA live DVD yet is because the reason I'm updating the iDRAC in the first place is because the virtual console is unreliable; arrow keys don't work, the mouse is nearly impossible to use, and the virtual media disconnects randomly.