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3 Posts
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169950
March 14th, 2014 03:00
iDRAC7 hard reset without local console or OS
We have a brand new R320 server with iDRAC7 that is well and truly locked up due to extraordinary circumstances. The server deployment and OS installation were interrupted due to a system crash elsewhere that also destroyed necessary configuration information.
As a result, we are left with a server in which:
- iDRAC root password is unknown,
- local console access is disabled in iDRAC settings, and
- there is no functioning server OS installation.
We want to reset iDRAC to factory defaults to start over, but cannot find a way to accomplish this.
We cannot boot to BIOS setup (F2) to reset to defaults as the local console is disabled by iDRAC. Talk about a chicken and an egg: console which is disabled would be enabled by the hard reset, but to complete the reset you would need the console. Argh.
We cannot log on to iDRAC remote console as we do not have the root password, which also keeps us from running DRAC tools remotely. We could run racadm locally without credentials, but that would require a local OS installation in the server, which we do not have.
What we need is a hard, hard reset of iDRAC without local console or iDRAC root. All we have is unlimited physical access to the server, that's all.
How can we do that? Is there a physical switch, jumper, whatever somewhere to euthanize iDRAC for good? A diagnostic boot gizmo of some description? I am thinking of e.g. the vFlash slot. Is there a special boot image that we could copy to a SD card to hard reset the server on power cycle?
vpyyluom
3 Posts
0
March 17th, 2014 04:00
Sorry, the hold-the-button trick did not work, the screen went blank but nothing happened afterwards. However resetting the PWRD_EN jumper on the system board did the trick.
vpyyluom
3 Posts
0
March 14th, 2014 04:00
Update: The R320 server manual refers to two system board jumpers, PWRD_EN and NVRAM_CLR which may or may not be helpful. The problem is that the manual is not entirely clear what exactly is it that these jumpers do.
Resetting PWRD_EN and power cycling the server is supposed to disable/erase "system and/or setup password". But these are just the BIOS password, right?
Confusingly, the manual states that when you reset PWRD_EN, "iDRAC local access is unlocked at the next AC power cycle." But what do they mean by "iDRAC local access"? So does PWRD_EN reset iDRAC root to calvin, as well?
What about NVRAM_CLR, then? Does it reset iDRAC configuration settings, as well, or is it limited to BIOS settings? If iDRAC settings are incluced, then we could use NVRAM_CLR to re-enable local console, which would be most useful?
The reason I am asking instead of just trying it out by myself is that the server is not in our premises but at our hosting provider's. They will follow our instructions if we can offer any, but I would not want to have them experimenting on the server as long as we do not fully understand what it is that we are doing.
DELL-Geoff P
990 Posts
0
March 14th, 2014 10:00
VPYYLUOM,
Have your onsite personnel go to the server, and hold the I button in till the screen goes blank. Have them follow the onscreen instructions when it comes back up by hitting the next, next, next buttons till its finished. This should reset the server and iDRAC; it should retain the IP address but all other settings will need to be reset.
Let us know the results,
Inforcase Tech
2 Posts
0
July 10th, 2018 08:00
Please share some pictures or statement to Reset PWRD_EN jumper on Dell R320 server.