I am new to the forum, though I have owned an EX490 for a couple of years. Yesterday I discovered the dreaded flashing blue health light, and little did I know just how painful the next couple of days would be as I tried to perform a server recovery. I believe I have tried just about every piece advice offered on this and every other thread I could find and I am still stuck at "Failed step 2 of 4" stage.

In my troubleshooting I did uncover something that no one else has mentioned - when I look at the TFTP window, there is no log information. In fact, there is no activity in any of the tabs, with the exception of "Listening to port 69" on the log tab.

I am using a MacBook Pro running VirtualBox with Windows XP. Could this have anything to do with it?

Here's some other information about the steps taken so far:

I have replaced the System disk with a new 1TB WD Green drive
Using a client computer connoted directly to the server (using a regular ethernet cable, and even tried a crossover cable)
Disabled Firewall
Disabled all other network interfaces except for TCP/IP
Tried a number of static IPs: 169.37.37.37, 169.37.37.42, 169.37.37.38
Tried using DHCP
Tried Booting into Safe mode
Tried to flash the BIOS (holding down the reset button for 20 seconds)
Copied over the Recovery disk locally and ran it from there
Copied over an updated version of TFTP

There's probably a few things I am forgetting. I have not tried the bootable thumb drive option yet, as it appears I need to establish a connection with the server. I am totally at a loss. I am about to toss this thing in the drink.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Can we go back to the original System Drive. Did it die or you were not sure so you opted to replace it? The flashing Blue Health Light would be an indication that WHS is in its boot process and that a failed or failing hard drive could be the cause and it can be any of the drives in the server.

If the original system drives is close can you install it again but back out all the other drives and disconnect any external devices so the only thing connected to the server is the System Drive, the Power Cable and the Network Cable and having the server connected to the network would be helpful. Then turn the server on.

If the server happens to boot you will get a RED Health Light but thats because the storage pool drives are missing and it will also complain about the client backup database being corrupt, file issues but again this is just because its missing the storage pool drives and it only takes one missing drive for WHS to pinch a fit and throw all sorts of Warnings and Alerts.

This does not resolve the recovery issue your posting about but I am curious if maybe one of the storage pool drives caused the booting issue and quite possibly your recovery issue.

The other thing before I forget is did you check to see if the new Green Drive is Advanced Format? To use it properly with WHS you will need to run an Alignment Utility to use it for multiple partitions which is necessary to use it for a system drive. You only need to run this utility once on a Western Digital Drive then your good to go. For use as a storage pool drive you maybe able to just jumper a set of pins but when in doubt the Alignment Utility available for download from Western Digital is your best bet and it will save you from future headaches as well.

For more information on useing these drives in WHS check out the link below:

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/12 ... me-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 detailed response.

In answer to your first question, I followed the recommended steps to isolate the problem. The blue light was flashing blue, not red, and it stayed in that state indefinitely. So I removed the storage disks one at a time, restarting in between each step. Still no go, so I figured it had to be the system drive.

As for the new WD green drive, I just checked and it is in fact and Advanced Format drive. Ugh. I checked the WD web site and it says you can use the utility AFTER installing an OS:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/det ... Zjl3X2s%3D

I would like to try and run it prior to the recovery, but I am kind of SOL as far as hardware is concerned. I have no desktop PCs nor any external enclosures I can use.

Do you really think this is the problem? Would it explain the TFTP issue where it shows no activity?

Thanks again for your thoughtful response - it is really encouraging to get some knowledgeable feedback on the topic.

- G

A quick update for those who may be interested.

I attempted to do the recovery with a Windows 7 laptop, which at least yielded some activity in the TFTP window, and actually showed an IP address on the DHCP tab. But the result was still "Failed on Step 2 of 4". I turned off my static IP which resulted in TWO IPs being assigned in TFTP and some more info in the log, but same failure in the end. It would appear that something is going wrong in establishing the connection with the server, but I am not sure what.

I did try the Bootable Thumb Drive outlined in one other post. It is a lot of steps and I am reasonably confident that I messed up somewhere along the line. In the end it doesn't even establish a connection with the server, and gets stuck at "Trying to connect to the server".

I am at the point of giving up and moving to another solution. Hopefully I can re-sue or salvage my existing disks in some way.

Just wanted ot share my EX490 server recovery experience with a unit I got very cheap from a friend of mine.

Being in the IT trade, advanced troubleshooting is fun to me, however in this particular occurance to say it was frustrating would be an understatement.

Without a debug cable made this quite the "chore", but finally figured it out! My server recovery would fail at step 4 of 4 every single time, regardless of WinXP, Win7, etc. I tried all the steps in this thread, including updating TFTP, however that would never work, neither would the USB drive recovery.

After watching the process, I saw that it would go through, download the boot.wim file, but on occassion would error out on occassion. This got me thinking the server must have been having a hardware issue. I tore it apart, removed the RAM and tested it in my computer (again, a debug board would have been great at this point), and the RAM immediately failed!

I swapped out the ram with a known good 2gb stick, the recovery would now proceed through step 4 of 4, but would lock up at the dialog box that asked for factory reset, etc. Shucks, stumped again!

Took the ex485 boot drive out of my server and put it in the ex490 for a bootable device. Automagically, the network card drivers were installed and the box appeared on my network. I RDP'ed into it, and saw that the date and time were set to 2002. I adjusted this to the correct date and time.

Put my ex490 (blank) drive back in, attempted the restore, and SUCCESS!! The server recovery now operated properly! Am glad I was able to save this one from the dump or parts on ebay.

In a nutshell, bad RAM and BIOS date/time were set to 2002, and must have caused the recovery to fail.

On a side note, are the default BIOS settings the correct settings for boot order, power saving, etc? Without a debug cable, I can't modify them - just want to make sure the default after a battery replacement are the "correct" ones.

tldr: Ensure that the EX490/495 BIOS date/time are set correctly - and if you're troubleshooting, SPEND THE MONEY AND BUY A VGA CABLE!

Thanks for all of this information. I struggled for a couple of hours trying unsuccessfully to get my server to recover, then I found all of the tips here, and whoosh boom, a *practice* recovery went flawlessly (connected to a PC using an ethernet cable). In a nutshell, I pulled all of the drives out, plugged a spare 1GB drive into the bottom tray and then went through the recovery process. Once it completed, I verified that I can RDP into the server and get a Windows login prompt. My expectation is that if I were to now install the connector software on my PC, I could set the userid, password, etc.

But that was just for practice. When I do it for real, what is the right/safe thing to do with the data disks? Should I leave them out of the machine until the recovery is complete, or should they be in the machine while the recovery takes place? If they're out of the machine, at what stage would I plug them back in? My goal is to not lose anything of the data on them. I'm ok if I have to reshare them or create new userids, but I'd rather not lose the data

Thanks

Guys,

Hoping someone can help. I created that PDF guide a few years ago.... nice to see its still being used!

I had to use it myself yesterday as my server starting playing up. I got through the restore process but.....

When it comes to the connector setup.... it lets me set the server name and choose a password. It then says "Installing updates on your home server" but I get an error. I've checked that the time and date are the same as the client PC, and they are!

Could anyone advise please? I can RDP onto the machine but the lights are flashing on and off like the setup hasn't completed. I can't use the home server console as the "Setup" never completes.

This is for a system restor rather than factory reset as I still have data on the other drives I need to keep. I put in a spare HDD and the Factory reset seems to go through without an issue.

I could do a factory reset and then put the other drives in.... but am unsure if the data will remain or will the server format them when I put them in??!!

Thanks,
Dave

_________________
All the best,
Dave

EX490 4TB, PCH A-200, Windows 7 Pro Desktop, Windows XP Pro Laptop, Windows XP Pro Netbook,

I wonder if the System Drive is acting up causing the issue with the Server Recovery client software implementation. The data you wish to preserve is still there and you can copy it to another location but that's another topic and depending on the amount of drives may not be as easy as it sounds. The other thing is that if the router was changed between your last recovery or setup and this go around that the router may be causing an issue with the client software which is something I experienced yesterday and resolved this morning but that was not with an EX49x but with an older EX470 but in this case I was performing a Factory Recovery because I wanted the older 1.x software not the 3.x which is was running and because I want to use the original webshare and wanted the server to run as close to WHS-OEM as possible.

_________________
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

Compo,

You are quite right mate. The router has changed since. Server has been running fine for a couple of years so had no reason to attempt a restore.

Funnily enough as we speak I'm copying data over the network..... having all 4 drive bays full means the data is scattered but nothing that spending a bit of time poking about won't resolve. Looks like the answer is a manual copy and then a factory reset.

We live and learn!

_________________
All the best,
Dave

EX490 4TB, PCH A-200, Windows 7 Pro Desktop, Windows XP Pro Laptop, Windows XP Pro Netbook,

Since you can remote into the server, do that and copy the Connector Software to a USB stick. Then plug the USB stick into your PC and run the connector installer off the USB. Try the server name or server IP address.

You can also try downloading and running the WHS toolkit software in "administrator mode" to give you some idea of what's going on.

_________________
HP MediaSmart EX495 E8600 3.2Ghz CPU, 4GB ram, 8TB storage including 3TB drives in pool. WHS with Active Directory, WDS, Media Center Master, Logitech server. Office 2010 server with client add-ins.
Microsoft MVP - Windows Home Server.

Hi DH,

Tried the connector to USB earlier bud and it fails in the same place.

I've now commited myself to the copy of data to my machine (hope I've got enough space!). I'll have a look at the WHS Tools before I factory reset just to see if there was an easier way!

_________________
All the best,
Dave

EX490 4TB, PCH A-200, Windows 7 Pro Desktop, Windows XP Pro Laptop, Windows XP Pro Netbook,

You said you check the time and date. Did you check the Time Zone ? PST or EST.

RDC into the server and go to C:\Program Files\Windows Home Server and run the WHSOOBE.exe to start the Out Of Box Experience app, report back.

_________________
HP MediaSmart EX495 E8600 3.2Ghz CPU, 4GB ram, 8TB storage including 3TB drives in pool. WHS with Active Directory, WDS, Media Center Master, Logitech server. Office 2010 server with client add-ins.
Microsoft MVP - Windows Home Server.

I did check timezone (GMT.... though I'm on windows 7 and that only has option of UTC)

Ran the .exe as you suggested. It looked like it completed but still can't start the console. When I try it says that the Backup service isn't running and then nothing else happens. The pulsing blue lights have gone though.... now I have all 4 drive bay lights flashing on and off.

_________________
All the best,
Dave

EX490 4TB, PCH A-200, Windows 7 Pro Desktop, Windows XP Pro Laptop, Windows XP Pro Netbook,

That's in part because you need to go through the console through a PC to set the server up. Even if you access the console in an RPP Session if you can get there or have a debug board you will not be able to run the console.

Two things to try:

(1) If you have the old Router just temporarily connect it to let the client software install the way it was meant to be

(2) Connect the client to the server directly just like you did when you started the recovery and see if you can get the console software to resume the server setup and if you can get to the part where you name the server and provide the password then you may be able to make the connection back to the router to pickup where you left off. This one is somewhat tricky but I know you can get it done this way. There is one part where the server will check for updates and it takes quite along time because there is no internet connection. I just went through this BS this morning and I think connecting my old router backup might of been the best solution but I got through it.

_________________
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

It could be that the connector software is different on the PC then what the server expects. Try running Discovery.exe from one or more of the PC's. Discovery.exe is in C:\Program Files\Windows Home Server.

_________________
HP MediaSmart EX495 E8600 3.2Ghz CPU, 4GB ram, 8TB storage including 3TB drives in pool. WHS with Active Directory, WDS, Media Center Master, Logitech server. Office 2010 server with client add-ins.
Microsoft MVP - Windows Home Server.