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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

How to clear an Idrac6


By Anne Tarantino Via Mike Kidd
I had a call from a customer unable to clear his Idrac6. Since in his case he had the BMC, Idrac6 Express and Idrac6 Enterprise, I had to get the big guns, the Kidd, Mike Kidd!
Mike took me through the 3 idracs on a Dell Poweredge R710 and for being not nearly as technical as he is , oddly it made sense to me.  The weird part to me was the clearing of Idrac6 which seemed a bit unconventional.  So often we joke about calling tech support and so often you hear “reboot” or “Unplug it” I will never ever again laugh at those commands from the tech on the other end of the line if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.
So if any of you need to clear you Idrac6, be it Idrac6 Express, or Idrac6 Enterprise on your  Dell Power edge R or T series servers, here’s how it’s done:
If your server is coming up saying your Idrac6 can’t be initialized or cannot be found or overall acting up, on your  Dell Power edge R or T series Dell server, then here’s a quick couple of things to  try to get it back online:
·         unplug server from wall – completely power down system and remove power from the wall  for about a minute or 2.
·         Reapply power to system, but do not turn on for a minute or 2
·         Try applying power to see if issue resolved.

If this does not resolve the issue
·         completely power down the system, unplug from the wall and remove idrac6 express and/or enterprise Idrac6 if installed.
·         Turn on server, and reset the BMC firmware through the control E menu in post
·         Rest BMC to defaults you will know it’s resetting to default  when you hear the fans spin up
·         Shut down server unplug from wall again, install the idrac6 express and/or enterprise Idrac 6.
·         Plug in server, but don’t turn on for a minute or 2.
Turn back on and it should work properly once again.

Each Dell Power edge T and R series servers come with the BMC idrac on it. There are options for the Idrac6 express and Idrac6 enterprise. Each idrac6 option has various features.


Thanks for reading and we hope this helps all that need it!