Usually when I come across a system like this, Ijust flash the firmware to an IT mode so we get just an AHCI system with JBOD, but sometimes it is not practical for remote systems or if we fear that flashing is too risky if something goes wrong.
In this case, we unfortunately have to use LSI/Broadcom proprietary CLI tools (megacli) to even make the drives visible.
Step 1 - Download MegaCLI
The official broadcom packages lack .deb packages and only have .rpm for........
One thing to remember is that you need MegaCli to do the flashing.
You also need the correct file,I tried at least 2 different Perc 6 firmwares from Dell that kept getting rejected as corrupt by MegaCli(they were really the wrong version). I have an external PCI-E Dell 6 Perc/I butI chose images from the 'Integrated" on motherboard version as it was allI could find. They are different, and below is my first time finding success.........
I flashed an LSI Logic firmware to it and it broke the BIOS (cannot do Ctrl+R) for booting purposes but allows other functionality to work normally.
I tried downgrading to a Dell firmware for Perc 6i but it won't work, not even with MegaCli
wget http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00416606M/1/SAS-RAID_Firmware_W83M2_LN32_6.3.1-0003_A14.BIN
--2013-08-26 12:53:39-- http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00416606M/1/SAS-RAID_Firmware_W83M2_LN32_6.3.1-0003_A14.BIN
Resolvi........