Thanks in advance for reading this.

I have an EX485 that is having some issues. It has 4 drives in it, and it has the stock system drive. It worked perfectly for a year or so, but as of a couple of months ago it began having some problems.

I have only one computer that is backed up on it-- it's a 64-bit Vista box that reliably backed up to the server for well over a year until this problem began happening.

I first noticed the problem when I would occasionally try to access a movie on the server from my HTPC, only to find that the shared 'Videos' folder wasn't accessible. I'd then walk over to my primary PC and find that none of the server's shares were available and that the console wouldn't connect. Sending a ping from the command line would fail as well. A hard reboot (using the power button) would bring everything back up to where it should be.

Long story short: I eventually figured out that it's the nightly backups that are freezing the server. The backup status on my PC gets to 12% and the server immediately freezes up. There are zero problems when I manually copy files over to the server or play files off of it, but backups ALWAYS cause it to freeze and require a hard shutdown/restart.

I don't know how to troubleshoot this. There are no obvious errors in the server's event log and it seems to do everything else just fine. Would re-installing the server's OS accomplish anything?

Help!

Hi pFranzen welcome to the forums and lets see if we can work this problem out.

At 12% I beleive the server is still checking the client for changes since the previous back up. I would take the time and run CHKDSK /r on all the drives on your client to make certain they are in good working order. After that I would have the server perform a manual backup to see what progress if any is made.

Lets start there and see what you come back with as these tasks do not take very much time to perform and will help rule out the client end of things.

_________________
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

One more note of interest:

According to this and a multitude of other posts at Microsoft's site, there are a lot more people than just me who are experiencing this problem: http://tinyurl.com/2ckcmkc

I responded at the end (I'm CUclimber on those boards). Same story as me: backups routinely freeze up the server.

I'll run a chkdsk on my PC later tonight, but it has been rock-solid and healthy as long as I have had it.

Also: sleep mode is disabled on both systems.

You did receive a response on that thread from kariya21 who has also recommended that your run CHKDSK /r on each drive of your Vista 64 Client.

_________________
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

No problems whatsoever on the client as far as CHKDSK is concerned, and that goes for both the C: drive and a second storage drive..

Have you tried to repair the Backup Data Base on the Server? Its located in the Console Settungs under the Backup Tab.

I just ran a manual backup and noticed that around 12% WHS was finishing lookin at the backups on the server and then switching to the beginning of scanning the client to determine which clusters have changed. Since CHKDSK did not find problems with your clients drives it now points me to your server. So I would recommend you run REPAIR to have WHS Repair any issues your backup data base may have.

After the repair is done then I would like for you to run a MANUAL Backup and watch to see how it goes. Then come back and let me know what you see.

_________________
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

I went through the 'Repair Backups' process and it seemed to get through it sucessfully. I tried to clean the backup database, but after letting that run all night it looked as though it hadn't made any progress.

I just did a Server Recovery and reinstalled everything (not a factory reset, mind you), and tried to do a manual backup and once again it failed/crashed/froze at 12% at the "Reorganizing data on the server" stage.

Any more ideas?

I'm guessing that there is a hard drive issue going on somewhere, but I'm a little unclear as to how to properly run chkdsk on a Mediasmart.

Also, this seems a bit odd:

From the console:


From the server's desktop:


The console shows the correct amount of free space and total size, but the view from Remote Desktop is all screwed up. How is it showing more free space than the total size of the array?

One more picture with something odd going on...

The capacities your looking when you RDP appear to be just displaying the Available System Drive Capacities of both partitons. I looked at my primary server and confirmed this appears to be the case and I am not sure why accept to say maybe its not getting its information from the drive extender which manages the drive pool. But if you just check your system drive capacities and do the math I think you will come to the same conclusion.

As for your backups not taking place properly I would have to say again the problem appears on the server end. A server recovery only rewrites the OS Partition on the server and then reads the tombstones for the drives in your storage pool. If one of your data drives is having issues it maybe why your having the issue when the server checks your backup data base and quite possibly way it was unable to repair it.

Are you running any of the Western Digital Advance Format Drives in your server. The most common one is the EARS Drives and I beleive there is one other but not certain of the model. If so did you jumper pins 8/9 to all the drive to run properly with a single partition? If you have one running on your system drive then your suppose to run the WD Align utility to make it compatable for multi partition setup but that drive would not be jumpered.

If you do not have Advance Format drives then continue with the next part but if you do then ignore the next part for now and just let me know.

What I recommend is that you shut the server down and run CHKDSK on all the drives in the server. If it finds an issue with one or more drives it will tell you if you need to run CHKDSK /r or CHKDSK /f on that drive. Hopefully CHKDSK will find your issue and resolve it so you can get back to using your server normally.

Once thats done you can once again attempt to repair your data base and see if the server is able to get through the process and if so then attempt a manual backup.

_________________
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

Nothing unusual about the drives. Just so we're clear, they are:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822152173
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822145233
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136317

...plus the 500GB drive that came in the 485. Pretty standard stuff.

I'll pull them out and do a /r /f chkdisk on them with my PC this weekend. Thank you SO much for all of your help!

[edit] Actually, that last WD drive does appear to be an Advanced Format (EADS) drive. If I were to put a jumper on it would I need to re-format it?

The WD Drive you indicate EADS is not the Advance Format Drive. Its actually a good drive I have several of them in my servers so no need to worry about jumpers with those drives. The others are ok too.

Just check them out. If you want to get a good view of their health you can download an ADD-IN called Home Server Smart => http://www.dojonorthsoftware.net/Freebi ... SMART.aspx it monitors the health of your drives using the Smart Data from the drives themself. Very good Add-In to have on your server.

_________________
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

Yay, problem solved!

By removing each of the drives and running 'chkdsk /f /r' on each one on another computer I was able to find some drive errors. With these fixed everything is working perfectly again.

The only question that remains is why the problem wasn't discovered or fixed on the WHS system. I was under the impression that it ran chkdsk regularly.

Thank you very much Comp1962.

pFranzen,

You know I ask that same question but the chkdsk scans are just that scans. I tell you this much its a royal pain to install each of the drives in a client computer, opening the case, installing the drive and so forth. Now that you have gone through that you may want to consider getting a docking station where you can connect them to your computer and just plug the drive in and turn it on which makes the task at hand much easier. The one I have can be connected either USB or eSATA can if eSATA it can handle 2 drives at the same time and with USB only one. Mines has a guide for installing 2.5" drives and that guide moves out of the way for 3.5" drives. These docking stations are made by many companies and now much easier to find then when I first bought mine.

I tend to do a lot of work with drives from time to time and that docking station saves me lots of time. Oh yea when you remove a drive from one after powering it down do not be too quick to remove the drive just let it spin down or it will throw your hand and arm for a ride to remember. I did this once and its the weirdest feeling and its not good for your drive or your hand or arm. Sometimes even the most patient person gets impatient and forgets to wait but for removing the drives from a docking station I always wait now that I learned my lesson that one time.

_________________
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