My sister delete all the file in the SMI drive of her EX485 as she thought she can release some space. Now she want to reinstall the WHS but she can't as she can't boot to recovery mode.
So is there anyone can tell me anywhere I can download the image of SMI, or just send me the image, please?

The SMI area is protected the only way to get access to it is to shut down and disable one of the services then reboot. So its not exactly easy to erase.

Your sister can put her server into recovery mode but pulling out the system drive, turning the server on and waiting for 15 mins to be on the safe side. Then slide in the system drive and begin the Server Recovery Process if all goes well she will be able to recover her server.

Good Luck......

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My sister is a computer "genius". She can destroy ATA controller of a logic board by install a game, so I don't surprise she format the SMI drive.

But I think something in SMI is missing because the recovery program doesn't do anything(she let the server and the computer run for 1 hour but nothing happen). She split the water few months ago but the recovery is still working, so sending it to HP isn't a method. So anything advice for her?

Please read my last post it has the answer for your sister.

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Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

If the recovery flash (shows up as SMI USB) is erased then it won't boot into recovery mode. Unfortunately the image isn't available for download from HP.

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Alex Kuretz
Remote Notification: Monitoring and alerting for your Home Server via email, Twitter, text message, RSS, push notifications, and on your Mac desktop
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Hi Alex
I have read all your posts about the SMI boot sector. After making my drive visible I found it to be declared as "Unformatted". I don't know how this happened since I haven't moded the system an more then installing 2GB ram.

Can you send me the SMI image to rebuild the drive?

Thanks

Phil

Hi Alex

Something else I have just noticed. My drive is only 128MB not the 256MB you have mentioned in other posts !!!

The flash itself is 256MB while the files on that flash that comprise the image are about 128MB. The recovery image is a Windows PE environment and not redistributable due to licensing restrictions from Microsoft.

_________________
Alex Kuretz
Remote Notification: Monitoring and alerting for your Home Server via email, Twitter, text message, RSS, push notifications, and on your Mac desktop
Have you tried our Add-Ins?

Alex, do you know if there is any way to restore the SMI area? I've roached mine - trust me, I'm sure of it.

Hi james.coburn Welcome to the Forums & Happy Thanksgiving.

Can you tell me if your server is still able to boot if so then you can extract the SMI file by disabling one of the services which I will have to look up. Then once you have a copy of the files in the SMI area you can create a Bootable USB Flash Drive and use that to boot your server into recovery mode.

I will come back and post the info needed to expose the SMI area and on how to create a Booting USB flash drive.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Hi Comp1962! Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving to you also.

It does still boot - sort-of. With the debug cable (viewtopic.php?t=8066) connected, I can tell that it completes POST and then stops at:

BOOTMGR is missing
Press Ctr+Alt+Del to restart

Oh thats a bummer.

Can you kindly tell me which server your using?

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Oh, yeah. That would be helpful, huh?

It's an HP MediaSmart Server EX485.

Thanks!

Do you happen to know anyone near you that might also have an EX48x MSS?

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8