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April 15th, 2026 09:32
SC5020F repurpose
I've got an SC5020F with an SC420 attached both filled with drives that I'd like to repurpose. I believe it was retired using the lifecycle controller retire or repurpose wizard to merely wipe all the info on the san and remove any keys.
Currently when I log in to unisphere I get a setup wizard which I cannot skip and it fails with a red X next to manage disks. I cannot progress any further but I can see disks in the cli using disk show and they all report healthy but unmanaged.
Am I able to return this SAN to service without having a dell service employee come out and physically reset it?
DELL-Marco B
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April 15th, 2026 13:38
Unfortunately, no. When an SC5020F is retired/repurposed via Lifecycle Controller, it enters an initialization state that requires disk ownership and key re‑establishment. If Unisphere cannot progress past the setup wizard and disks remain healthy but unmanaged, the system is effectively locked in an uninitialized state.
In this condition, the SAN cannot be fully returned to service without Dell Support, as a service‑level reset (or reinitialization procedure) is required to clear the retired state and properly re‑own the disks. This typically requires Dell involvement and cannot be completed solely via Unisphere or standard CLI access.