What disks get initialized during option 4 in the Ctrl-C menu?

[bjacobsen]

I have a FAS3210A with 2 DS4243s, with each controller owning all the disks in a particular shelf. I need to reset one controller back to factory defaults to address some RG misconfiguration and set my root aggr to 64-bit, and have already migrated all data off the controller in preparation for this task. The other controller and its disks still contain production data, so I need to tread very carefully. I suspect that option 4 will only initialize the disks owned by that particular controller and leave the remaining disks visible via MPHA untouched but would like some confirmation of this. Would it be a good precaution to remove this controller's visibility to the other disks by disconnect the SAS cabling to the other shelf or should that be unnecessary?

[aborzenkov · Accepted solution]

Normally it will touch only disks owned by this controller. I have never seen it to do anything different. But of course if you can, physically separating other disks during installation won't do any harm.

[mark_schuren]

As long as disk ownership is in place for all disks, it will only initialize all disk owned by the controller.

[mcope]

Just adding a "me too" to the replies.

Any disks owned by the controller you are running 4/4a on will be be initialized and a 3 of them will be chosen to create an aggregate and add a root volume.   Don't forget to reinstall Data ONTAP so the new root volume gets all the AutoSupport and GUI related support files installed.