Hi all,
I am new in this forum, I was pretty happy with my server and support was something I never thought about. A few weeks back, after an OS update, my server booted but all of a sudden it simply didn't reconnect to the network and the status light just keeps blinking aqua. I came to the forums in search of an answer and fount lots of similar issues, I inclined on to the OS space problem, so I ordered the cable to be able to connect a monitor from vovtech. The cable arrived and I proceeded to boot with a USB keyboard and pretender to boot with command line and erase the temp files from the OS partition. What is my surprise that the keyboard doesn't work, up to today I have tried three different keyboards but none of them work, while on the Bios Chek, I hit the supr key as instructed, I even hit all but nothing happens, then after the bios check and storage check, I see a brief message that the keyboard driver has an error, after that, the OS tries to continue to boot. Unfortunately the server never goes by the Windows Server Welcome screen, no matter how much time I let it run.
One of the first things I tried, even before coming to these forums, was the server recovery, but it is no use, it never detects the server. I have tried the recovery with the monitor, and I see it boots and gets to a little window where it says it is initializing the recovery CD, while in my desktop I run the recovery, but nothing happens.
Please let me know your thoughts, I am a little desperate, I have all four drive bays occupied with about 6 TB most of the are movies. Is not a big loss since I have the DVDs and BluRays, but all the digitizing time I have spent... well really makes me wish for the recovery. All the other information is backed up.

Hlp m3 OB1 u R m nly h0p3

I would start checking drives to see if they are all good. The "OS space" could be a good guess, but from what I have seen, bad drives are most common. Remember that the bottom drive can only be in that spot, so ya might want to label it if you start pulling drives.

goodluck

_________________
EX470 5-3-08 CPU/RAM/BIOS/New Power Supply-For sale!
X510 3-15-11 CPU/RAM -Active.
X710 2-15-13 DIY Test 2012E.
X510 3-20-13 CPU.
X510 4-25-13 from parts.
EX490 5-12-13 used.

Thanks for the tip, I will try and let you know how it goes. But what about if the OS drive is the one failing, can I remove it and recover all my storage?

Right now you haven't lost anything. Just checking drives won't hurt your data, you can always pull it off the drives with a usb docking station or by attaching them to your PC inside (be carefull).
You have options, you can do a recovery and with any luck your data will be ok. That being said, always backup stuff you can't lose.

That is the great thing about V1 of Win Home Server, the data is stored as mostly normal data.

If you find a bad drive (system drive) then you will need to purchase a new one, I would recommend a 1 TB or 500 gig as prices are still kind of high.

Then hopefully you have your discs for a recovery.

But first, checking for bad drives, you can read many threads on how to start checking. If you don't find a bad drive, well, cross that when ya get to it.
Just my 2 cents.
goodluck

_________________
EX470 5-3-08 CPU/RAM/BIOS/New Power Supply-For sale!
X510 3-15-11 CPU/RAM -Active.
X710 2-15-13 DIY Test 2012E.
X510 3-20-13 CPU.
X510 4-25-13 from parts.
EX490 5-12-13 used.

It only takes one drive to muck up a recovery or prevent a server from booting properly. I prefer to connect drives to another computer using a Docking Station because it simplifies the connection process. Docking Stations also come in handy if you want to copy data from a drive to a location of your choice. If you want to backup the data on your storage pool drives you will need to set your computer to be able to view hidden files and folders then you will find a folder named DE and in there you will find your data.

One of the common issues I see is a drive becomming corrupt after a power failure on units not setup or protected by a UPS. The corruption occurs when a drive is being written to and power is lost. Most of the time running a CHKDSK /r will resolve the issue but if a Server Recovery is necessary WHS will need to see all your storage pool drives so it would be a good to verify all the drives are in good working order to make certain the recovery has a good chance of success. Of course the draw back here is time and the more drives you have the more time. If your have software which can read the SMART data on the drives you can get a much clearer picture of the drive health. This is why running the ADD-IN HomeServerSmart is so useful in that it allows you to better predict the health of a drive and hopefully replace it before it actually fails and creates issues. Having said all that there are times when drives simply just fail without warning and this is something I do not wish upon anyone but it does happen.

_________________
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