I have a 6 year old ex470 that has 3 drives in it 500gb each. Today I tried to access it and found it was off. I unpluged it and plugged it back in, hit the start button, and it started but hung with 4 red Hard drive lights and the server condition was red/purple with a blue network light. The server was also not detected on my computer

When I tried to turn the unit off using the button nothing happened. The only way I could turn off was to disconnect the power.

Thinking I had a bad drive(s) I pulled all the drives and installed another good drive in the bottom bay. Same red lights as above.

Anyone seen this before?

I could only find a few threads that address red hard drive lights, most say call HP. Would anyone offer any other comments?

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ex49x/v1 (toyin w/Vail)
VGA
Q8200s w/two 30mm cooling fans
4gb Ram
Rear Casecover Cooling Mod

I have seen it with a non-working unit I purchased to get the enclosure for a project I wanted to do. I connected a debug board to it and there was no BOIS Post, no video what so ever. I made a note on the box I put the board in that I suspect a bricked or corrupt BIOS.

The only thing that's different on my board from yours is that yours appears to be in recovery mode with the health light blinking Purple/Red. Can you back out all the drives and disconnect any devices connected to the eSATA and USB Ports then turn the server on and when your health light is blinking Purple/Red, log on to the router and check the DHCP listing for a device starting with the name MININT followed by other things. If you see this then your BIOS is most likely good and your server for some reason is booting into its recovery mode but the hard drive lights turning on RED and staying Red is not normal behavior but I have a motherboard which works perfectly fine except it can not properly control the LEDs.

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Hope it's ok to borrow your thread.

Did you ever find a solution to your problem. I'm asking because I have similar symptoms. The difference is that my server condition is just purple. No signs of network activity when I try recovery. Any hope of resurrection or is it time to let the MediaSmart rest i peace?

As for my server no was never able to correct the issue. You could acquire another working unit and just plug in your drives and it will fire up provided the drives and the OS are in good working order, I have a working EX470 available I was instructed to find a good home for if your interested.

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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 anyone comes up with a solution, I would appreciate it.
I have an EX 475 (December 2007 purchase) that has worked great . . . until, it displayed all Red for the drives, then the drive light goes off and the health blinks red / blue. When I check my Router, it has accepted the assigned IP address, however I can not connect to it either by the IP address (the error message is: The remote device or resource won't accept the connection), the desktop console or remote desktop.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Now that information is a bit more interesting because the Red Hard Drive Lights turned off which is normal when power is disconnected from the server and they will briefly turn on red when the server is turned back on then go off. Now if they stay RED that's the really bad thing. If you turn the power on again the drive lights should not turn on until the server has fully booted.

Now if you could back out all your drives and disconnect any externally connected devices but leave the network cable connected and then turn the server on and observe the health light it should at some point blink Purple/RED as the title post indicates. Now if you logon to your router you server should show up as a device starting with the name MININT followed by other things. This will confirm the server has network connectivity and that its able to boot into its recovery mode. You can shut the server down at this point.

So the issue your being faced with is the server is not properly booting and quite possibly one or more of your hard drives is preventing it from booting. Most often its the system drive but any one of your storage pool or unmanaged drives could prevent the server from booting. You could try booting the server without any other drives connected. If the server is able to boot then you will have all sorts of error because of the missing drives. Then shut the server down and connect one drive and reboot and keep doing this until the server no longer boots then shut it down and remove that drive and connect it to another computer and run a CHKDSK on the drive.

If the server will not boot with only the system drive then you will need to connect that drive to another computer and perform a CHKDSK to correct any issues the drive may have. Of course this is a major pain in the you know what but its necessary to get your server backup and running.

_________________
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

THANK you for the suggestion --- I will not be able to try it until after Thanksgiving.

Just an FYI --- sorry that I was not as clear as I should of been with the Red HDD Lights. They do exactly as you indicated --- after removing the power connection, waiting a couple of minutes, re-connecting the power and turning on the unit, the Red HDD lights come on for a short time, then go off. If I leave the power connected, turn off (using the power button on the back) the unit and the turn it back on again, the red lights on the HDD do not re-appear.

Thank you again, for the suggestion. Will update when I have had a chance to try them out.

Have a Great Thanksgiving!

I'm glad I saw this because I'm having the exact symptoms... except my HDD lights stay red. One day I find my mediasmart is off and when I turned on all HDD lights are red with server condition lights purple and other lights blue. I could not shut it off unless I pull the power plug. I did the suggestion of backing out the drives and I surely did not see MININT come up in DHCP clients. Sounds like my unit is dead... Any chance or resurrecting or should I replace the EX475?

Hi gkl welcome to the forums!

The only thing I am aware of you can try to bring your server back would be to review the information in the following link and see if it works for you. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12616

If your unable to get the server working then you should replace the server or think about building a new server that's more robust.

For replacement I can help you with that and I can even upgrade the Processor. You can even find servers on eBay. If you can build one yourself I can offer you assistance in that area or I can build one for you to meet your needs.

Feel free send me a PM and if you want to acquire another unit or if you want to openly discuss your options further write a reply here.

_________________
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

[quote="Comp1962"]Now that information is a bit more interesting because the Red Hard Drive Lights turned off which is normal when power is disconnected from the server and they will briefly turn on red when the server is turned back on then go off. Now if they stay RED that's the really bad thing. If you turn the power on again the drive lights should not turn on until the server has fully booted.

Now if you could back out all your drives and disconnect any externally connected devices but leave the network cable connected and then turn the server on and observe the health light it should at some point blink Purple/RED as the title post indicates. Now if you logon to your router you server should show up as a device starting with the name MININT followed by other things. This will confirm the server has network connectivity and that its able to boot into its recovery mode. You can shut the server down at this point.

So the issue your being faced with is the server is not properly booting and quite possibly one or more of your hard drives is preventing it from booting. Most often its the system drive but any one of your storage pool or unmanaged drives could prevent the server from booting. You could try booting the server without any other drives connected. If the server is able to boot then you will have all sorts of error because of the missing drives. Then shut the server down and connect one drive and reboot and keep doing this until the server no longer boots then shut it down and remove that drive and connect it to another computer and run a CHKDSK on the drive.

If the server will not boot with only the system drive then you will need to connect that drive to another computer and perform a CHKDSK to correct any issues the drive may have. Of course this is a major pain in the you know what but its necessary to get your server backup and running.[/quote]

[size=150]Thank you for your suggestions[/size]

I removed all four drives ---

(1) Router detected MININT-VPP5HOL -
(2) Health Light blink Red/Blue

Was able to do a CHKDSK on all but the System drive ---- no problem detected, except I noted that they have very little free space.

Was not able to get the System Drive to (1) boot up (2) respond to a CHKDSK command or (3) get an access to the drive at all.

Thus I "presume" that my issue is with the System Drive and most likely not the HomeServer unit?

Is it possible to replace the system drive (not sure exactly how to do that)? I do have the "Software Installation Disc" Version 1.1 and the "Server Recovery Disc" Version 1.1.

I have been very happy with the HP HomeServer unit, especially with the ability to do a complete drive restore (including all operating and system items included) vs just data back-up.

The main importance, for me, is the complete system back-up and the ability to completely restore a computer's hard drive and operating system. While I do use some of the other features, the computer system back-up is the most important.

Are there newer "HomeServer" types available that will accomplish the computer back-up? Any suggestions on how to find one? Would it be more prudent to look for a new system vs spending time on my current server?

THANKS for any help, support, suggestions ---- appreciated!

Rusty

Yes you can replace the System Drive and then Perform a Server Recovery with your storage pool drives connected to the server to preserve your data. DO NOT PERFORM A FACTORY RECOVERY or you will lose your data.

Once the recovery is completed and you are setting the server backup again because you will need to setup the server again, Server Name, Password, User Accounts, Remote Access etc, just make sure you download and install all the HP and Microsoft Updates ignoring all server warnings and alerts about the Client Backup Database as those will go away once the server has been fully updated. If you repair the database before the updates are complete you will surely lose some of all of your client data.

Let me know how you make out & Good Luck with your recovery.....

_________________
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

THANK you so much for your help and assistance!

Hopefully only one more question -- The current System Drive is 500 MB: (1) Do I need to replace it with the same size? (2) If I use a larger Disk, will the HomeServer use the added storage? --

THANKS!

Rusty

You can replace it with any drive 80GB - 2TB in size. If your looking to max out your internal capacity the you might install only 2TB Drives. Thing is the System Drive will be the last drive WHS will put to use to store data.

_________________
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

THANK YOU!

Will let you know how it turns out ---- "may" be after Christmas / New Years.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2014!

Rusty

Your welcome and please do come back and let us know how you make out and if you need additional help this is a great place to get the help and keep in mind that the Site Search feature is extremely useful for finding information and there is a ton of information just waiting for anyone to find.

_________________
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