Hi Guys,

So no matter what I do, I cannot get my EX490 to be a reliable WHS box. Ive switch drives, re-installed OS, troubleshooted etc and it always ends up crapping out. So now that I have this box that doesn't stay on my network and I cannot connect to, I want to turn it into an external drive enclosure. Is it possible to keep the box plugged in via eSata and use it as a disk storage device? I have run out of HD spots in my HTPC and would like to extend my movie collection on this this device if possible. Any ideas on how or if this can be done? Thanks.

No, it's not possible to use it as external drive enclosure unless you replace the internals. You could install an alternate operating system, or purchase the debug board if you need a video display.

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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
Have you tried our Add-Ins?

You should definitely look into the debug board. I've got one each on my EX487 and EX490 and it's a valuable tool. The debug board can shed a lot of light onto potential problems. Perhaps the stick of RAM is flaky, or maybe the CPU is on its way out. It's also possible you've had a couple of bad hard drives back to back. I'd recommend you get the debug board and then get the OS back up and running, and then see if you can see where it's dying out.

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Matt Sawyer
Owner, Dojo North Software, LLC

HP EX490, 4GB, E5300, 15TB - Server 2012 - Sharing and Streaming
HP EX487, 4GB, E5300, 13TB - Server 2012 Essentials - Backups