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PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 11:20 am 
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I know how to recover on v.1 on the EX495, but I can not find a guide for doing this with WHS 2011. Do I still need to rip it apart and hook up monitor key/mouse or can i just hook it up to my laptop directly with CAT6 and use the original install disk or usb flash drive? Not sure how to just recovery the server, leaving all data intact.


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 3:40 pm 
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WOW that's a good question. Let me ask you if you setup the OS Backup to run twice a day or did you happen to make a manual backup of the OS? I ask this because you can recover from the backup and its better if you had the backup automated where its done twice per day.

Were you storing your data on individual drives, using RAID or one of the 3rd party pooling software like Drive Bender or Stablebit Drive Pool?

If the System Drive is functional and your just looking to replace it just image the drive onto a new drive and then you will be back in business if the original drive is readable.

I am not personally aware of a good way to do a blind recovery with WHS2011 and that is not to say one does not exist, I know Acer did it with their RevoCenter using a Bootable USB Flash drive but what I do not know is how the full process worked and if they provided a way to recover from a backup at some point along the way. I do own one but have not played with it enough to know.

The best way to achieve what your looking to do is to install a debug board and connect and external USB DVD Optical Drive to the bottom rear USB Port and then connect a keyboard, mouse and monitor to the server and run the server installation disk. This is best if you have an OS Backup you can use to recover from. If you do not have an OS Backup then you may want to reinstall the OS using one of the Blind Methods but in this case I am uncertain if you will be able to preserve your client backups or not even if they are located on another drive but I can look that up and see what I can find out for you because I have WHS2011 books here to look at.

On thing I will mention about Stablebit Drive Pool is that even if you perform a new installation with the drives not connected then after the OS is installed you can connect your Storage Drives and install Stablebit Drive Pool and it will see the drive pool but you would have to add the shares back into the server to access the data. I believe but am not 100% certain that Drive Bender is the same way.

If you current system drive is still functional and the data can be properly read you can simply just image the drive to a new one and be back in business quickly. I proved this out when I changed my Mechanical Drive to an SSD and it worked perfectly and I used Acronis True Image which you can get from any Drive OEM but you will need to have one of their drives in the computer your using and it matters not if your imaging the OEM's drives or not because the OEM version of Acronis True Image just checks to see if you have one of their drives in the computer and then the installation will take place and the software will be functional so long as you have that OEM's drive in your computer.

So just answer the questions above and tell me as much as you can about how you have your server setup so that I can fully understand your situation. I do have an EX49x here I can play with where I can do a WHS2011 installation on and play with it based on your setup. I do have a working WHS2011 server but its on an EX48x so its similar but not quite the same but I don't prefer to muck with that server because it's working perfectly but the EX49x I can experiment with and I actually have 2 of them to work with so one way or another I think we can find a workable solution to your problem and because I do have debug boards I can see what is going on when an issue pops up.

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 10:03 am 
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Comp1962 wrote:
WOW that's a good question. Let me ask you if you setup the OS Backup to run twice a day or did you happen to make a manual backup of the OS? I ask this because you can recover from the backup and its better if you had the backup automated where its done twice per day.

No we did not, here is the thread about why we need to recover the server.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13911


Quote:
Were you storing your data on individual drives, using RAID or one of the 3rd party pooling software like Drive Bender or Stablebit Drive Pool?

Drive Bender, latest version.

Quote:
If the System Drive is functional and your just looking to replace it just image the drive onto a new drive and then you will be back in business if the original drive is readable.

We are trying to isolate what the problem is, software or hardware.

I am not personally aware of a good way to do a blind recovery with WHS2011 and that is not to say one does not exist, I know Acer did it with their RevoCenter using a Bootable USB Flash drive but what I do not know is how the full process worked and if they provided a way to recover from a backup at some point along the way. I do own one but have not played with it enough to know.

Quote:
The best way to achieve what your looking to do is to install a debug board and connect and external USB DVD Optical Drive to the bottom rear USB Port and then connect a keyboard, mouse and monitor to the server and run the server installation disk. This is best if you have an OS Backup you can use to recover from. If you do not have an OS Backup then you may want to reinstall the OS using one of the Blind Methods but in this case I am uncertain if you will be able to preserve your client backups or not even if they are located on another drive but I can look that up and see what I can find out for you because I have WHS2011 books here to look at.

I have a debug board, and this is how we installed the OS originally, just not sure how to recover the server without losing data. I would think you just put the bootable USB flash drive in with OS and see what it says?


Quote:
On thing I will mention about Stablebit Drive Pool is that even if you perform a new installation with the drives not connected then after the OS is installed you can connect your Storage Drives and install Stablebit Drive Pool and it will see the drive pool but you would have to add the shares back into the server to access the data. I believe but am not 100% certain that Drive Bender is the same way.

I really liked Stablebit, but had some incompatability issues between it and Newsleecher so we opted to use Drive Bender.

Quote:
If you current system drive is still functional and the data can be properly read you can simply just image the drive to a new one and be back in business quickly. I proved this out when I changed my Mechanical Drive to an SSD and it worked perfectly and I used Acronis True Image which you can get from any Drive OEM but you will need to have one of their drives in the computer your using and it matters not if your imaging the OEM's drives or not because the OEM version of Acronis True Image just checks to see if you have one of their drives in the computer and then the installation will take place and the software will be functional so long as you have that OEM's drive in your computer.

We have Acronis as well, but feel that perhaps there is some corruption in the OS as he did have to roll back some windows updates to resolve some other issues he was having.

Quote:
So just answer the questions above and tell me as much as you can about how you have your server setup so that I can fully understand your situation. I do have an EX49x here I can play with where I can do a WHS2011 installation on and play with it based on your setup. I do have a working WHS2011 server but its on an EX48x so its similar but not quite the same but I don't prefer to muck with that server because it's working perfectly but the EX49x I can experiment with and I actually have 2 of them to work with so one way or another I think we can find a workable solution to your problem and because I do have debug boards I can see what is going on when an issue pops up.

He has an upgraded EX495 with all bays full, WHS 2011 and latest version of Drive Bender...no server backups.


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PostPosted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 6:49 pm 
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The OS Backup would of made the process a lot easier for sure.

If the drives check out and test clean then your in a pickle of sorts unless you have access to another EX49x or x510 where you can install the drives and turn it on to test things out. I would in this case disconnect the NIC because WHS2011 will most likely complain about the hardware change and will want to check the license with Microsoft. Thing is here your looking to see if the server boots and displays the same thing. If you want to see the server appear on the network then I would disconnect the MODEM then connect the server to the network and see if it shows up and functions as one would expect it to.

All this will do is eliminate the hardware issue and if things go wrong then it will confirm a software issue.

If a software issue then what I would do is perform a new server installation with only one drive in the server. Install the updates, Intel RST Driver and LED Software to get the LEDS working, add the user accounts back, install any ADD-IN's and 3rd Party Software like Drive Bender. Once Drive Bender is installed, connect the pool drives back into the server and I do believe Drive Bender will recognize the pool. If so then you can add back in the shares so that you can resume accessing the files.

The one thing I am uncertain of is how to resolve the Client Backups or where they were stored originally. If the client backups were on the system disk or were moved to a dedicated disk or to the storage pool I am not quite certain how to get them back and fear you may just have to wipe it out and start the client backups again.

On the clients you will need to remove the client software after which I would reboot the client before reinstalling the client software. WHS2011 client software is at times a PITA if there was a previous installation not totally removed. Its something that once you experience it you will never forget it. Unlike WHSv1 Client Software its not as friendly or forgiving when its installed and it see's things which should not be there like previous installs of either WHSv1 or WHS2011 client software.

Once you get the server running again I urge you to setup and OS Backup to a dedicated drive be it internal or external. By doing this you can run the Server Installation Disk and recover the server from the OS Backup Drive and it will place your server back to the date point you chose. Its also handy for when you make changes that do not go so well and you want to get back to the day or two prior you can. Once you see it work you will fall in love with it and the entire recovery process only takes about 45 Minutes to an hour.

_________________
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


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