topic Re: A200 Factory reset in Active IQ Unified Manager Discussions

A200 Factory reset

SAOhioDatacenter — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 14:01:57 GMT

I'm installing a new AFF A200 SAN and having trouble and to the point that I'm thinking just resetting it and starting over it a faster soltuion that trying to get what's configured working.

There's no data on it, just the initial magement port config, and some of the cluster set up (cluster build, and 1 node joined).

Is there a way to reset the A200 and start again?

Thanks!

Re: A200 Factory reset

michael_england — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 21:13:11 GMT

The way I've used to fully reset a system is to interrupt the boot process and use option (4) Clean configuration and initalize all disks. There are two opportunities to press Ctrl-C, the first one will halt the boot entirely, wait for the second one for a special boot menu. Then option 4.

This can take quite a while as it zeros out all drives. If they're small it'll be fast but if you've got large SATA drives it can take a while. You will still keep any SP IP address information but everything else will get removed and put you back to square one.

Re: A200 Factory reset

billyd — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 21:27:13 GMT

I agree with the option 4 for the clean configuration. With the A200 being an All-Flash system, the disk zeroing process will be very fast. Expect the process to be 10-30 minutes, depending on drive size.

Re: A200 Factory reset

AlexDawson — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 00:26:26 GMT

As others have posted, the serial/usb console and option 4 (run on both nodes) will totally reset it, and since it is all flash, it will be quick.

Top of my head, here's what you'd likely want from a simple A200 setup:

- Create one data aggregate per node (active/active), or reassign all partitions to one node and make a single large data aggregate (active/passive), ensuring optimum RAID group size/RAID type

- Apply licenses (if not applied in factory)

- Create subnets for data service and device management

- Create SVMs for data service

- Create LIFs for data access (one per node per SVM for SAN, one per SVM for NAS)

- Create volumes/LUNs

- Setup export-policy/AD connection/SAN igroups for connectivity

- Verify autosupport/ActiveIQ functionality

- Upgrade ONTAP to desired release

Each of these can be undone and redone pretty easily without resetting the system, with the possible exception of aggregate setup. Resetting is a valid option, but I just want you to know it isn't the only option - you can fix/change ONTAP setup pretty easily and safely

Re: A200 Factory reset

SAOhioDatacenter — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 02:45:55 GMT

Thank you everyone for your input - the option 4 reset got me back to where I could start and again and I was able to compete the entire setup and config successfully this time.