Internal SD Card format PowerEdge server

Question

Hello,

i'm working on fully automated server decommission process of Dell PowerEdge servers.

One thing i bumped into is that i cant find any way how to securely format Internal SD Cards which were used for ESX installation.

Is there any method ?

Thanks

DELL-Young E · Accepted Answer

Hi, thanks for choosing Dell. I'm afraid I've never come across such a way exists. Sorry we can't be of help this time.

DELL-Rey G · Accepted Answer

I havnt seen a way to do that either. Its a pain to do it, but you could remove them from the system and then wipe them using a laptop or desktop equipped with an sd card slot.

mtalas · Answer

Thank for reply. Yeah i see this as a gap in DELL SD card implementation

SchrodingersCAT6 · Answer

To format these:

Power off server, open cover, physically remove both SD cards
Connect to microSD card reader and your PC
Open elevated CMD (DOS) prompt and enter: diskpart
Next Command: list disk
Here you'll find the 16, 32, or 64 GB card listed along with any other storage installed, so take care to document the proper disk # you need
Next Command: select disk x (where x is the number associated with the SD determined in step 5)
Next Command: clean
This now has wiped ALL partitions from the device, though it's in no way a secure wipe, or remotely considered a DoD or NSA wipe as data could be recovered
Swap out SD cards, start at Step 4 and run through things again
To exit diskpart, close out the CMD window

Once both cards are wiped, it will more or less prevent use of them as IDSDM module cards because I presume there's some custom bootloader Dell applies from the Factory.

We had ESXi 6.7 on those, but installed a BOSS card and ran a fresh 7.0.3Uf install, and the system accidentally rebooted to IDSDM and then to 6.7 which was NOT great, so without a BIOS, OS, or iDRAC way to wipe them we went this route.

Now with both cards installed, it squawks in vCenter that fault tolerance is down and it can't write to either. As of yet, I've found no way to reflash them back to Dell config (though with no OS or bootable data) so please use the diskpart method with caution as if you want to use those card later, I see no way to reflash them so you might have to buy new ones.

PowerEdge Hardware General

Internal SD Card format PowerEdge server

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