Dell XC Core Hyperconverged Appliances Release Notes

Rapid Appliance Self Recovery

Use the Rapid Appliance Self Recovery tool (RASR) to restore the factory settings on the Dell XC Node system.

CAUTION:The restoration process erases all drives on the system. Ensure that the customer contacts Dell Support before using the RASR tool.

The Dell XC Node system must have power connected to the power supplies, a valid network connection, and an iDRAC connection.
Some Keyboard, Video, Mouse (KVM) devices, especially those which use USB passthrough, may interfere with the RASR process, resulting in RASR being detected as a mount point. Remove the KVM during the RASR process and run the RASR recovery from the iDrac console using the Virtual Console instead of a KVM The RASR ISO is new for 15G servers and works with 14^th generation XC Node systems. 13G servers are not supported by the RASR ISO, so you must rely on the onboard SD card method.

Factory reset of the entire node to factory defaults. All data on all disks are erased.
Recovery of a node if there are four or more nodes in the cluster. Guidance required by Dell support.

Recovery of a node if there are three nodes or fewer in the cluster. Consult Dell EMC support for recovery options.
Upgrade of the Hypervisor or Acropolis operating system (AOS) for cluster nodes.
Backup or restore operation of a Dell XC Nutanix node.

Go to www.dell.com/support.
In the Enter a Service Tag > Serial Number box, enter the product name. For example, XC640.
Select your product from the list that is displayed.
Click Drivers & downloads.
From the Category menu, select Miscellaneous Utilities.
In the Name column, expand the hyperlinked RASR title.
To view information about earlier versions, click Older versions.
Click Download Now to download the file.
When the File download window opens, click Save to save the file to your hard drive.

Installation requires access to the iDrac and Virtual Console.

To connect to virtual media map the CD or DVD.
Browse to the RASR ISO file that was saved previously and click Map Device.
Set Next boot option to the virtual CD, DVD, or ISO.
Boot the system and allow it to Boot into the RASR ISO.
Choose [F] for Factory reset. [Q] quits the operation and reboots the node.
You are prompted to ask if you are sure.
1. Enter Y to move to the next step, the Hypervisor selection menu.
2. Enter N to stop the process.
Choosin Hypervisor Example [70] selects VMware ESXi 7.0U3.
At the next assurance prompt, enter Y to proceed with the imaging process.
The imaging process is data destructive.
After the imaging process finishes, you see a message that the Factory Install has completed. Press Enter and reboot the server.
The node begins a Hypervisor installation during which several reboots occur. Allow this process to complete.

This process only applies to XC4000w because it has no iDRAC so recovery can only be done by creating a bootable USB drive from the install iso.

Create a bootable USB media from the provided XC witness installer iso. Place the usb onto the usb port of the XC4000w.
Reboot the witness node (from iDRAC or physically) to boot into the USB.
Wait some time and retrieve the IP address of the witness installer from iDRAC of one of the included 4510c or 4520c nodes. Or login with serial console (automatically logs in) Default ssh credentials are xcrecover / westOrange3!
From the installation menu follow prompts to confirm recovery and ENTER to image the host disk. This could take ~15 minutes. When it is complete you will be prompted to type ENTER to reboot to the host.
Remove the USB drive after installation has completed you can wipe/reformat the USB drive, it is no longer needed.