My HP EX490 MediaSmart Server recently failed to boot properly after I shut it down to add an additional HDD to the attached ProBox 4 bay external eSATA box (which I also shut down and unplugged for the upgrade).

I've been unable to decipher the LED error codes and not due to a lack of trying. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Powering on the unit yields the the following:


Power Light = Blue

Network Connection Light = Blue

Health Light = Blue + Red alternating blinks 5 each

After which the Health Light LED blinks blue for a long while. Then the Health Light LED blinks white for a long while. Then it finally turns solid RED without blinking and stays that way.


I should also point out that the Power and Network Connection LEDs always remain blue. In addition I have turned down the Light Bar for each HDD all the way down in the EX490. Therefore, if a drive failed I wouldn't be able to see it. My router can see whatever devices are connected to it wirelessly or wired and the EX490 simply doesn't show up on the attached device list.

My guess is that if any drive attached to the server failed it would probably still boot just fine as long as it isn't the system / OS drive. So I think I'm looking at a system drive failure but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure how I would be able to restore the EX490 with a new drive and (hopefully) retain all or most of the data on the pool drives.

I'm still looking into this (googling and reading) but any help would be great as this is fairly frustrating and I don't want to lose any data.

Thanks in advance.

Oct.

I would remove the new drive from the Probox and see if the EX490 will boot. Some drives mostly the larger than 2TB Drives have caused issues with the Probox when added. If you performed a hard shut down when you first encountered this issue you may have caused an issue with your system drive if the drive was being written that is if you held the power button in to shut the server down rather than tapping the power button.

The booting issue and the new drive could just be coincidence and nothing about the new drive could be causing the issue but with all troubleshooting you need to go through a process of elimination and ruling out anything new that was added to a server to see if that new thing is causing an issue. This also applies to troubleshooting any computer regardless of the OS installed on it.

You may also want to review the health state of all your drives by connecting them to another computer using a utility like WindowSMART 2013 or other software which can read the SMART info from the drive. Best way to connect a drive to another computer is to use a USB-SATA Cable Docking Station or even your Probox. This will help determine the health of the mechanical part of the drive and then running a CHKDSK will examine and correct issues with the file system on the hard drive.

Thing about hard drives is they can be working perfectly one minute and not the next while others give you warning signs but there are times when hard drives just act badly. The other thing to keep in mind is that any drive can prevent or delay WHS form booting properly and it can be any drive connected to the 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

Thanks for the input.

I eventually removed the added HDD from the Probox (which was a WD Red 2TB) after seeing there was a problem. I didn't see there was a problem right away simply because I didn't expect there to be any issues since this was all fairly standard procedure. To be clear I shut the server down via the WHS console allowing it to shut down properly. I have two Probox units connected to the EX490 and they shut down automatically if the server is shutdown. So power wasn't prematurely cut to the drives during writing. I removed power to the Probox before adding and removing the HDD again as standard procedure.

When the EX490 is at the end of the LED error code cycle (solid red) pushing the power button once quickly (not having to hold it down) shuts the unit off immediately.

For what its worth I had the WHS S.M.A.R.T add-in installed on the EX490 and there were no standing issues or warnings with any of the drives save for the original Seagate OEM system / OS drive which was listed as Healthy but degraded. No failures were predicted though. Although to be fair USB HDD's don't seem to forward SMART data and one Probox was connected via USB,....so that is unknown.

I'll certainly take your advice under careful consideration and put into practice. I have a Vantec NextStar USB dock that I can use for the drives physically in the EX490 and connecting the ProBox units to a laptop should be easy enough. If all else fails I'd like to just be able to transfer all the data to another server. The EX490 was up to about ~20TB of storage when it went down. If I could lifeboat the data to my Windows Server 2012 Essential box (which i should have done before) that would be something too.

I was kind off hoping for a translation of the LED error codes and I'll keep looking for something along that line since it will help zero in on the exact problem but I also need to make some progress wherever I can.

BTW, a while back my EX490 had a PSU failure which I replaced with a generic one. I followed the Wiki guide here to chose a model PSU and to do the HP proprietary pin conversion. It worked fine and was a while ago so I am convinced that isn't a factor here.

Thanks again for the help.

Any additional help would be greatly appreciated and greatly needed.

To get the proper Health Code from the server you need to press and release the Status/Recovery button in with a paper clip. Do not hold it in just press and release. Then the health LED will blink a series of different colors just count each color and note the first and second color and then list the blink code.

You can look up the meaning of blink code in the following link: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/docu ... ct=3969717

In most cases the System Drive is the problem however as I have indicated other drives can also cause an issue with the server. You can boot the server without the storage pool drives connected but expect to see a ton of errors and alerts and your health light will most definitely be RED because of all the errors but the server will be functional to a point. If you can get the server to boot with the storage pool drives removed and you can get on the console then you will know the System Drive is OK and the problem is with one of the Storage Pool Drives.

As for moving data to your WS2012E server you should be able to connect the drives to that server, set it to be able to view hidden files and folders and then you will see the hidden folder DE where you will find the files the drive contains from which you can then move to your WS2012E Shares. Once your done with the drive you can then add it to your WS2012E or pull it for continued use with your EX490 when you get it back online which means you will have your data on two servers.

Just remember hard drives can be a big pain in the you know what. As for reading the SMART info from USB Connected Drives you should be able to. With WindowSMART 2013 I can read the SMART Data from USB Connected Drives however I am not looking at them with a USB Port Multiplier. Not all SMART software can read the USB Connected Drives but I am just confirming my experience with WindowSMART2013 which is free to try if you do not have it installed on the client your going to be working with. So test out a single drive in your docking station and then connect your Probox up to see what you find but certainly do both to see if one or the other or both work.

Good Luck and let me know what you find and if there is anything else I can do to help you along I will be right there so your not alone.

_________________
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 change ex490 Mss backup battery after that its power on blue light was blinking its not connect to the network i think bios was reset any body help me

You may have a time and date issue now and the only thing I can think of unless others chime in is to get a DEBUG Board, set the motherboard jump proper to unlock the BIOS and then take it from there. Just make sure you get a GEN3 Debug Board as some earlier versions had some misc issues getting into the BIOS experienced by some but not others.

Those batteries last quite along time and I would of been hard pressed to believe the battery would of been in need of changing this early on. I have much older units with their original batteries still holding strong. Anyway what's done is done and now you have amplified the problem but the best way to resolve any MSS is to get a DEBUG Board which is hard to justify by most when issues arise. Its always better to get one when your server is running well.

_________________
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

Little update.

I've disconnected the first ProBox external 4 bay enclosure and have started copying data over to the new Windows Server 2012 Essentials box. All 4 drives in the ProBox seem to be working fine but its slow going.

Booting up the EX490 without any external HDD's yields the same LED error codes. I still suspect the OS drive as being the problem but I'll check it as soon as I get a chance. Right now I'll duplicate the data on the 2012E server and I'll try and fix / troubleshoot the EX490 when done.

Another update,....

I have recovered most of my data from the EX490 HDD's. At the moment I have run out of storage space on the new Server 2012 Essentials box so I'm going to have to add more storage in order to duplicate all of the data. I have one more HDD to test / transfer data from plus the EX490 system drive for a total of two HDDs to go.

All the other HDDs from the EX490 (and attached MediaSonic ProBox enclosures) I have copied data from have worked flawlessly and I don't suspect them of being the cause or a contributing factor to the issue at hand. I hope to get to the remaining two drives soon as I have three new WD Red 2TB drives ready to go.