Hello all,

I've been running my EX490 for a couple of years now with no problems until a few days ago when I lost remote access to my server. Upon further inspection I found the main sys drive had failed. I placed it in another computer to run chkdsk and it fixed some errors in stage 2 but when trying to complete stage 3 it stuck at 10%. I had another drive in the storage pool as well which is working fine but obviously I cant read the data. My question is, what are my options for recovering the data? If the main hard drive is bad will I be able to image another drive then add the existing drive I had from the original pool? Or is there something that will allow me to see the data that is on the second working drive?

TIA for any responses!

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Win Home Server 2011 8Tb
QNAP TS-559 Pro II 16TB

Noyb,

I've been running a whsv1 system for 3 years that I built from scratch from old parts and the system drive just recently failed on me. You may already know some or all of this and/or be ahead of me technically, but here's my 2 cents.

So to answer your questions, I've got good news and bad news for you.

I'm not familiar with how the HP EX490 was set up, but when you install whsv1 from scratch...it makes two partitions on your main/system drive...a ( by default 20GB but maybe greater) bootable system partition, and the rest it makes as a primary data partition where actual data can be stored. So you've got two partitions on your main drive. THEN it makes any remaining hard drives present (or later added) as "secondary" drives that will contain just data.

When you first download or transfer a file to your server, the PRIMARY data partition on your main drive gets it first...kind of like a landing zone...then....IF THERE'S ROOM ON YOUR SECONDARY DRIVE(S) ...it will move it OFF of the primary data partition on your main drive and onto the/a secondary drive, but it will leave behind a pointer (called a tombstone) on the primary data partition that literally "points" to where the file is located on your secondary drive. Those tombstones are essential.

It sounds you have exactly two drives total. So, if you only had two drives total AND HAD FOLDER DUPLICATION ENABLED, then our hypothetical file itself (along with its tombstone pointer) would remain on your primary data partition but the file would be COPIED to your secondary drive. That would be the best case scenario for you because then ALL your data is guaranteed (in theory) to be on that secondary drive.

If you did NOT have folder duplication enabled and only had two drives, then some of your actual data may actually be present on your failed drive. However, it is UNLIKELY that data remained on that primary data partition if you had a lot of room left on your secondary drive, as whsv1 prefers to move data there if there's room.

Either way, you can hook up your secondary drive to a computer and get your files that are there and check to see if anything is missing..or just copy them off.

I used an external SATA/USB enclosure to get my files off. You will see two folders. One called (i think) "DE Shares" and another called "folders". The "folders" folder contains your client computer backup data, and the "DE Shares" folder contains all your files. Note that these two folders WILL be hidden, so you may need to enable viewing of hidden folders on your computer to be able to see them. ALSO, you will have to "grant yourself permission"....it takes a while...to be able to access them. Once you do that though, you should have access to all your files. That's the good news.

The bad news is NO...you will not be able to somehow make a whsv1 system drive and have that recognize your data drive to restore your whole system. In order to repair/reinstall whsv1, the main drive MUST be accessible and working...or at least recognizable. This is because the main drive (on the primary data partition) contains those "tombstone" pointers to all the real files on your secondary drives, and you need those tombstones. The system partition isn't as important, and can be wiped clean...which it actually is on a whsv1 reinstall...it's just that the primary data partition must still be there and intact. In fact, the bootable (system) partition on your main drive can be repaired using the boot-from-cd process on the install disc, but obviously not if the drive has failed.

What I would do, in addition to checking the files on your secondary drive as described above, is to slap that possibly-failed drive into another computer or external enclosure and see if you can see the two partitions....but if you're sure it's failed...then..yes...you'll have to do a brand new installation of whsv1 through an install disc. Just copy all your data off the secondary drive onto something else (you'll have to buy another drive if you don't have room...in addition to a new drive for the system drive), do a new install of whsv1, and then move all your data back in there manually.

I appreciate bill123's lengthy answer, unfortunately there's some incorrect information in there.



WHS hasn't had the "landing zone" concept since PP1, Drive Extender by default will store new files on the data drive with the most free space, and only if all data drives are nearly full will it store data on the system drive. Also, WHS doesn't move data around, it places it once and then duplicates it if duplication is enabled. There is no balancing of data across the drives.



This is incorrect. WHS can lose the system drive and still rebuild the tombstones from your data drives. You simply replace the system drive with a blank new drive, and perform a Server Recovery. If you did NOT have duplication enabled, then you will lose whatever data was stored on the system drive. Also, since the PC backups are not duplicated, you may lose some or all of those backups.

Here's a guide to recover your data if you need to: http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-U ... 573697777f

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Alex Kuretz
Remote Notification: Monitoring and alerting for your Home Server via email, Twitter, text message, RSS, push notifications, and on your Mac desktop
Have you tried our Add-Ins?

Thanks for the corrections!

Yea, I am fairly new to the workings of whsv1 simply because I never had to concern myself with it until my system drive recently failed. So I did most of my reading in a rush over the past few days.. The "landing zone" information that I read was indeed gotten from, on second look, an outdated microsoft technical paper.

And I simply must have completely missed or overlooked the fact that you could rebuild/repair with a whole new system drive...I had thought you'd at least need the primary data partition. That's pretty cool that it will rebuild the tombstones from all your data drives.....must take FOREVER though if you have a lot of data!

With mine, I ended up doing a new install and manually copying off and putting back in all 3.5 TB of data from my data drives...yea it took quite a while. I wonder if that ended up being quicker or slower, everything included, than rebuilding all those tombstones?

Anyway, thanks again...and I was pretty confident in my "wrongness" too...always a dangerous thing!

Hey Bill,

Actually its the updates that take the most time once the initial recovery takes place. The rebuild of the storage pool doesn't really take all that much time. I believe you will spend more time reconfiguring the server with the User Accounts, reloading the Client Software, setting up Remote Access, some misc server settings and installing the ADD-INS of your choice.

The only thing I would recommend to anyone performing a recovery is to verify their drives are in good working order before starting the recovery. This is where ADD-INS like Home Server Smart and on the client end WindowSmart2012 help you keep track of the health of your server drives when they are in the server or installed on a client PC.

I have been running WHS since 2008 and its never let me down. I have run into some issues but once your familiar with WHS its really a cake walk unless you have your wife standing behind you worried about all the family photos you placed on the server. Not really a big deal the photo's are safe provided you have duplication turned on but better if you have them or other important files stored in another location and then you will have a backup which is a wife proof insurance policy. Of course its been years since I have had a wife and computers and such are better because they do have a reset feature.

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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 guys, I was able to pull the data from the second drive after all and moved everything to my qnap nas for safe keeping until I decide whether or not to go upgrade to the new WHS 2011 or re install the original..

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Win Home Server 2011 8Tb
QNAP TS-559 Pro II 16TB

IF you opt to install WHS2011 on your EX490 I would really take the time to search the site to read everything and anything others have posted about running WHS2011 on their MSS regardless of which model server they installed it on. Doing this will help you undestand the pro's and con's to doing so.

While you can do a blind install I would recomment you purchase a DEBUG Board to help you with the install and to better allow you a means of troubleshooting issues that may occur during a blind install.

So find out everything you can about installing WHS2011 on your EX490 and then decide if its a proper solution for you or not before you jump into 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