Quick background...I went back to the states for the holidays and my WHSv1 thats been running for two years was unaccessible after two days of being gone. I came back to the system being on, but unaccessible from the network. Ever since then I have scanned the Seagate drives and found numerous errors that were corrected by the Seagate software, but the system tends to hang shortly after boot. Booting into safe mode keeps the system from becoming unresponsive, but I can't use much from there. I've been using crashplan on the server so I believe everything is backed up, but I can't to be able to backup my "PC backups" database; which of course won't clean itself. The system says the database is fine until I try to run a cleanup on it and then the backup service crashes. Running the repair says everything is fine... I want the original from scratch "PC backups".

So I've been trying to get my EX490 and EX485 (flashed with EX490 firmware) into recovery mode with the system drive so I can repair the OS and I can't get either to work. I've followed the directions from HP:


But it never blinks aqua and red on start up and if I press it while its booting, I can get them to blink two aqua, three red or aqua for a moment and then blinking red only or several other combinations that aren't want I'm looking for. Usually when it's doing these combos the attached keyboard is non responsive and nothing shows on my monitor (I have the monitor kits in both servers).

I also tried this suggestion by yakuza found in another post:

If I don't do anything the servers boot into the "Boot from LAN" function. This is driving me nuts.

Should I wait until the BIOS screen comes up? Usually thats too late... As it is now, even if I get the backups back I can't get WHSv1 back from the stupid restore disk.

I don't have the link on hand. But you can try the wiki again for more details.
Anyway without all details.
Some have suggested to pull the os drive. Boot the server. when it gets to recovery mode re-seat the os drive and continue as normal.
Something like that.
And it makes sense, if you had to replace the hard drive then perform a recovery. Then the os would be non existent.

I think it was Yakuza's suggestion.
Since you have tried this already.
if you have folder duplication on then you could connect the drive to your pc wipe it completely including the partitions
and try again.
I have never had a issue with recovery on a brand new os drive replacement. Only when re-using a drive.

BTW,
You are aware that a recovery will delete the pc backups?

_________________
VGA/PS2 Keyboard/PS2 Mouse/Serial debug board
Popcorn C-200
Popcorn A-200
Dune HD Connect
Rasberry PI OSMC(KODI)
ReadyNAS RN316
Amazon FireStick
Amazon ECHO
AnyDvD
MyMovies

Yeah, I had seen that a lot of people had issues recovering to a pre-used unformated drive, but I've even tried to get into the recover console without the drives in and it won't go. Usually when I press the recovery button just upon boot it locks up everything or just continues to boot into Windows.

I've seen this site that details a way to make a bootable USB drive that waits for the HP restore disk, but I don't have an EX470/5 to get the boot files or boot disk from (http://mediasmartpodcast.blogspot.jp/2010/01/how-to-create-external-bootable-usb_09.html). My EX480 used to have the bootable flash, but I can't access it any longer after flashing to the EX490 firmware to support the upgraded processor. Too bad that wasn't a detailed side effect.

Anyone have an EX470/5 to snag the files from?

Oh and I was under the assumption that a restore of the system drive would only wipe the OS files and not the whole drive. I guess I'll have to get it into Safe Mode and try to get he files off from there.

I did a Google Search for the "EX490_USB_boot.rar" file mentioned in the other site and came across this post: http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6307&p=88070#p87985. I downloaded the PDF file and I'm downloading the other files to try and see if they work.

This isn't entirely accurate. If you perform a Server Recovery on an existing System Drive, only the C: partition is erased and reloaded, and the data partition will be left intact. If you replace the entire system drive, any files that are NOT duplicated and exist on the data partition of the system drive will be lost. Since the PC backups are not duplicated, some or all PC backups may be lost in the second scenario.

_________________
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! That's what I thought I had read. Once I get around to making the disks I'll repost here on the status.

Using the PDF guide I linked to above I was able to create a bootable USB stick to get back into the recovery console. No more standing on one leg and chanting while trying to push the recovery button and get into the console...

So I was able to get into the bootable USB recovery console and the Recovery software says it finds the server, but once I choose "Server Recovery" from the software menu and click next it says "Recovery had problems. Click next to continue." and then "The Server recovery operation failed because your computer could not connect to the Server."

In the thread I listed above I found someone who had the same issue and asked about it, but they were never answers (viewtopic.php?f=25&t=6307&start=135#p91377). Would anyone have any ideas?

Also, here is a copy of the recovery console log...

Not a direct answer to your question, but hopefully helpful.
While I have never made or used a usb boot setup I have preformed 5-6 recovery/resets with the factory cd/dvd. I also know they can be very fickle and fail very easy, sometimes it just takes a few trys to get it done.
The best way I and many have found is to have a direct connection via a normal cat5 cable (does not need to be cross-over) copy the cd/dvd contents of the server recovery disk to the pc/laptop you are going to use to recover it with.
Turn the server off and fire up the program and follow the instructions, it will tell you when to fire up the server and pressing and releasing the little button etc/etc/etc.

Firewalls/antivirus/nortons all can get in the way of this so some boot into safe mode with networking to ensure nothing gets in the way.

All I can offer is it can be done given you have the stuff that came with the server. I just may take a few tries. Wishing you good luck

_________________
[X510 CPU/RAM/All 2 TB Red's] [X510 CPU/Sync'ed Backup/All 2 TB Hitachi's]
[X510 /2 in box]
[X710 LIAN LI DIY W2016E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
Fear the Cloud