My old router died WRT600N so I purchased a new one RG300ex and installed it.

Now I have a mess.

One of my systems shows a greyout windows home server icon the other is showing me a message stating that "The Drive Extender Migrator Service is not running". on both machines if I try to access the server I get the message that "this computer cannot connect to your home server." ...etc. on the unit itself I have 2 solid and the farthest right one flashing blue with none of the internal hard drive blue lights on.
If I could get at least one of the systems to access the unit I could at leash check on the drive extender or see if there are any specific errors but no luck. I am open to idea especially if you have encountered this problem yourself.

Thanks for the suggestions and help

I smell hard drive , I think it was just timing with when you changed out the router.
Although I was bite once by changing out a router and ended up doing a reset, but I knew my drives were good.

Think about getting a USB external hard drive dock, they come in very handy for accessing drives and don't cost much.
Knowing a little more about your hardware and it's age might be helpful at some point.

P.S. Mark the bottom drive so you can get it back in the same spot and it might be a good time to blow/clean out the server.

Shout out at how it's going.

_________________
EX470 5-3-08 CPU/RAM/BIOS/PS.
X510 3-15-11 CPU/RAM.
X710 2-15-13 DIY.
X510 3-20-13 CPU.
X510 4-25-13 used.
EX490 5-12-13 used.
Ex475 6-15-13 used.
EX485 6-17-13 used

Well timing is everything so I can not rule out a hard drive problem. It is also the first time in 2 years since it has been powered down so it possible that the start up caught the problem not seen during its constant run cycle. I will start checking each of the drives (this will take a long while. 3 internal 2 Tbs and 4 external 2 Tb's plus the boot drive at 500 gig).

But enough for that for now let me add a little something I learned when swithching out a router. If you leave the whs powered up or for that mater even with the power cable still attached the lan card will not let go of the previous ip address. Only by removing the power cable from the whs for a while and then pluging it back in was I able to get the new router to assign a new ip address.

Now I have since learned that if I had gone from, in my case, a linksys to another linksys it would have been ok since they keep the same ip range 192.168.1.* where as the new one used 192.168.0.* that second last number is based on who makes the router and darn if it was not a problem. After removing the power cable for a while allowing the capacitors to discharge and then powering it back up was I able to get the whs to accepted the new ip address. Then at least one of my computer out of 4 could at least see the system even though it is the one giving me the errors stated originally. The others do not and I may have to reinstall the whs software on them (why no idea but it is the solution that was recommended so I will giv it a try. )

I will up date the ticket as I go along to serve as an example to others of what not to do LOL

For now I am heading out to purcahse a dock station and will start testing these drives im leaving the system off till they are all complete so next update may be a while .

Feel free to offer more insights or suggestions if any others come to mind

Much appreciated for the assistance.

The IP Range is the issue. Your old router was 192.168.1.1 but the new one was 192.168.0.1 and if the server was still on when the router was changed the IP on the server may not of changed causing you the issue which appears to of resolved itself once you rebooted the server and it acquired a new IP Adrress resolving that issue but my guess is rebooting your clients would resolve their server connectivity issue as well.

Once you get the connectivity issue settled and still want to explore your server or your computers for any potential hard drive issues I suggest you install the ADD-IN HomeServerSmart to your server and WindowSmart2012 on your clients which will allow you to see the actual health of your hard drives. http://www.dojonorthsoftware.net/Default.aspx

As for a Docking Station I highly recommend one and I am glad your going to get one. You may also want to get a small 4" Table Top fan to blow air over the hard drive while you have it in the dock to help keep it cool when you run things like a CHKDSK on them. While the fan is not really needed it will help keep the drive cool while your working on it removing the heat factor. One word of advise on extracting a drive from a Dock is to let the drive spin down before extracting it or the drive may throw your hand accross the room. I did this once and only once not thinking and its the weirdest thing and one I hope you never experience. Patience Rules.

_________________
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's always a good idea to shutdown all the devices (computers, TVs, printers, media extenders, anything that requires an IP address) on the network when installing a new router. That gives you a chance to configure the new router before any other systems try and get an IP address. Something I do is reserve certain IP address below *.*.*.25 for different device such as the WHS and my printer. I always set the DHCP range of addresses to be served and set up the reserved IP addresses right away. Once you've got it all set up you might consider printing the page that lists which device has which IP address for future use.

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HP MSS EX490, Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300, 1TB System drive, 6TB Storage pool managed by StableBit DrivePool

I agree with TxDot. Reservining IP numbers for devices is very useful especially with servers running specific applications which require specific ports to be forwarded to them be it the default ports used by WHS or by 3rd party applications you may chose to run on your server like Subsonic, Remote Potato and such.

Printing the Reserved IP list so you can use it for refrencing is also a good idea. If your router has a backup option it would be good to backup the configuration once you have it working well. I use network printers myself and I also have dedicated print servers that I have been using for years. One thing I like to do is print an IP Number Label using a Brother TZ Label machine and simply stick the IP number on the device. This way if I ever run into an issue I will have the IP number there to help me.

If you run Norton Internet Security on your client(s) they have a Network Security Map which when configured will also assist you in finding your devices as well as labeling them. This is how I actually found out about the EX47x when in recovery mode has a device name MININT followed by other things. The other things as mentioned changes each time the EX47x enters into its recovery mode. NIS Network Security Map is also useful to determine whats actually running on your network and lets say you left your router open to the world and others hope on it then you can see those devices.

While I understand why people love WIFI and this is different and abit off topic but will mention it anyway. I not only setup the WIFI security keys but I also set my WIFI up to only allow devices online that have certain MAC Addresses. This allows additional protection for my WIFI network which I really do not like to use but need to use for my Android Devices. Controlling access to the router using MAC Addresses also comes in handy for hardwired devices as 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

Well that was heart breaking. All of the drives were scanned scandisk /f /r they all tested out good and were reinstalled. After plugging in and powing the system the problem persists. Still have 2 solid and on the farthest left 1 flashing blue light with none of the internal drive lights coming on and now no access to the system from any computer.

Any other suggestions or course of action that I should be attempting at this point? Any help would be appreciated.



I was really hoping for a easy fix. The server seems to disagree with me on this point

Thats not good. I would pull your storage pool drives and see if he server will boot with just the system drive. If the server does not boot then you will need to perform a recovery.

If it boots then it could point to something not being right with one of your Storage Pool Drives possibly corruption or missing files even though the drive is in good condition. A remote possibility could be the PSU not able to handle a load but its remote.

Anyway when you boot the server with just the system drive it will complain about missing drives and corruption of the client database and file corruption and this is all due to the missing drives. Only takes one drive to go missing for WHS to have a bad day and if your not ready for it, well it could scare you into believing more is wrong with your server then is actually wrong.

So if it boots then you can examine the logs for issues that might help you and if not then shut it down and insert one storage pool drive boot and then add another drive and keep repeating the process until the server fails to boot then shut it down pull that drive and continue on if you have additional drives to install.

I would be curious if you did have one drive that has an issue and that if you were to boot the server and then logon to the console and then insert the drive would WHS Accept it. Of course I would also be interested about the SMART Data on the drives which you can get using HomeServerSmart or WindowsSMART2012.

Let me know how you make out.

_________________
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

Pulled all but primary system drive. The problem persisted so I replaced the internal and external hard drives.

Had no choice but to use the server recovery disk. Used one of the computers that could not see the WHS as being connected. Thought I would solve two problems at once. Interesting discovery at this point. After the server recovery was complete Something which took several hours (nearly 6) The computer that origanally could see but not loggin to the server no longer detected it on the network. I uninstalled and reinstalled the software on that one as well as the other systems and after completing each reinstall they were able to see and access the server.

All of the users were lost as well as the data they had stored but the primary backups were surprisingly still intact and accessable with no indication of any errors or data loss. WHS could see all the attached computers but it did have to reset the backup specifications for each of the computers to show what hard drive need to be backed up and which folders to exlcude as these setting were lost in the recovery as well.

I suppose it could have been much worse and it did get me thinking however as to the possibility of some how setting the ip for the WHS to a static address rather than allowing the router to assign one where ever it had room.


Any ways back up and running and I thank all for thier suggestions and support. Wish it had been a simple chkdsk problem but now I have a better idea of how to handle it should I ever need to switch routers again

when in doubt power down first

Thanks for the assistance in this matter

Good to hear you have your issue resolved and increased your knowlege about your server along the way. The forums are packed with useful information about WHS. Chances are any issue you encounter has been encountered already and a solution exists here in the forums. This is where the Site Search comes in handy. The site also has a WIKI which is useful and there are many guides to help you enhance the use of your server.

So no matter what your curious about or need help with its probably already been written about here and there are other sites doing the same thing and you will notice many of us will point to other sites.

_________________
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