Restoring to Factory Defaults Gets Hung

[cer43tcent]

Hi all.  I have a CIVS-MSP-4RU I'm trying to restore to factory defaults with a 6.3.x recovery disc.  I create my partitions per

https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/11750216/factory-restore-recovery-dvd

and then run the factory.  However, it gets hung on 16% of "Executing pre-install user scripts".  Another copy of the recovery disc will get hung even earlier on 28% of the Configure General Settings.  As I type this over 15 hours has passed and the factory I left running is still on the 16% of "Executing pre-install user scripts".  If I click on Abort or Alt+r the installation doesn't abort. 

Another something I have tried is creating the partitions then running a repair.  I've tried this twice, once with one large partition under RAID6 and the other time with three VD in RAID5.  The one large partition repair threw errors of GRUB at the end and upon reboot said No Operating System Found.  The three VD scenario repair threw errors early about the part tool not being able to modify partitions, but it eventually finished and upon logging into VSMC of 6.3.1 it shows no partitions are available.

The recovery discs I'm using I've used before with the same external DVD ROM and they've worked.  I even cut another one at the lowest burn speed, but got similar results.  Any recommendations.

[Scott Olsen · Accepted solution]

What is the recovery ISO you are attempting to use?

It should match: 

MD5 Checksum:

4afb85e9639a7e0e346057554c828acc

[cer43tcent]

I'm unable to verify the recovery ISO as I'm using disc(s) on hand.  And......can't download from Cisco Support due to maintenance not being kept on the equipment.

Something I noticed this time around for a factory restore is that even after having created the partitions, the first reboot after typing "factory" the server reboots, but the DG and VD are shown as 0 available upon boot.  Is this normal?

[Scott Olsen · Accepted solution]

No.  I don't believe so.  If I had to guess, I would say that whatever recovery ISO you are using isn't capable of (or correctly performing) the re-creation of the RAID volumes?

When this iso boots up, does it explicitly *state* that it's applicable to the CIVS-MSP-4RU chassis?

[cer43tcent]

Thanks for the feedback.  The issue turned out to be a bad drive slot on the chassis.  I'm no BIOS or Linux guru so it took me a certain error message upon trying to install SUSE Linux to figure that out.  So the drive would appear in BIOS, but it was shown as outside the enclosure.  I was still adding it to the array, but the whole time it was the issue.

[Scott Olsen]

Strange.  Glad to hear you managed to get it resolved!  Thanks for updating the thread to let others know what you ran into!  

Cheers :-)