In a computer or ata transmission system, to reset means is to clear any pending errors or events and bring a system to normal condition or initial state usually in a controlled manner. It is usually done in response to an error condition when a processing activity is impossible to proceed or it's undesirable for the activity to proceed and all error recovery mechanisms fail. A computer storage software would normally perform a "reset" if a command times out and error recovery schemes like retry or abort also fail.