Hi Everyone. I'd first like to say thank you all for all the helpful information on this site, it's helped me countless times.

Now on to my issue. I've had an EX490 for almost 5 years and could not be happier with it, but unfortunately my system drive crashed this week. Now that I've experienced a failure I plan on being proactive once I recover the server this weekend by installing the WHS BDBB and Home Server SMART add-ins (debug board should be here any day). I read that I will lose all of my client backups after I recover the server but on one of my pool drives I found the directory \DE\folders\{000000xxxxxxxxxx} and it appears to have my client backup .DAT files in there, some of the file names begin with my client PC names. Does this mean somehow the client backups were duplicated to my pool drives and they'll be there after I recover the server? If not will the server automatically delete the files and reclaim the 275 GB of storage?

Thanks so much for reading and helping if you can.

Patriot

Not exactly. WHS will store client backups on your storage pool drives but not duplicate them. Had you installed BDBB before your System Drive Failure you could of turned on Duplication for the Client Backups as BDBB offers you that option.

If your changing out your system drive then you will only lose the Client Backups which exist on the DATA Partition of the System Drive but not the ones in the storage pool. If no Client Backups are stored on the DATA Partition of the System Drive then you will not lose any of the client backups.

Now I need to backup a bit. If you perform a Factory Reset you will lose everything. If you perform a Server Recovery then your data will be preserved but since the System Drive is being replaced then you will only lose backups as mentioned above and any data stored on the DATA Partition which was not duplicated to another drive in the storage pool. Having said this I will also tell you that WHS only stores data in the DATA Partition of the System Drive as a last resort meaning if there is not enough space on other drives within the pool.

If your Current System Drive is in good working order and you were able to perform a Server Recovery using it then chances are you will not lose anything.

The only real pain about recoveries is that you will have to set the server up all over again which is time consuming but you will also need to install all the HP and Microsoft Updates and ignore any warnings and alerts about the client backup database being corrupt. Just download all the updates and you should see those warnings go away and if not then and only then perform a database repair. Its more to do with getting the server back to its full updated condition and so anticipate these types of warnings, alerts and recommendations and only pay attention to them after the updates have been fully installed.

Before I proceeded with any recovery I would run a CHKDSK on the System Drive because if it can resolve your current issue it will save you a ton of work and time.

Good Luck with getting your server backup and running!

_________________
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

I lost all my backups but all my other data was intact. After a week of trying to repair the failed system disk, chkdsk finally completed and reported it had repaired errors. I was then able to boot the server again and install BDBB but while backing up the backups the server crashed again so I finally gave up on it. After performing a server recovery (what a PITA!!) with a new drive the Server Storage tab reported I had over 500 GB worth of PC Backups but that space was reclaimed after running 'Cleanup Now' under Backup Cleanup and Databse Repair.

What a mission the recovery was! I knew I was in trouble when I never got the flashing blue and red, only flashing blue so I never had the opportunity to put the server into recovery mode. I could see the server grab an IP from Tftp console and I could see the server copying files over at the server console but it would always fail at step 2 of 4. I just had to keep guessing on when to hit next during the recovery process since I never had the flashing blue and red and never saw a flashing violet after inserting the paperclip.

I tried using a Windows 7 laptop booted into safe mode with networking connected directly to the server and connected through a router. I tried a WindowXP box connected directly and through a router. I tried formatting and creating a 20 GB partition then attempting the recovery. I tried the paperclip at various times during the boot process and nothing worked. I tried copying the recovery files to the local drive on my laptop and running from there. Then I read someone said it worked after they pinged the server so I started a continuous ping from my laptop to 169.37.37.37 which of course just kept timing out. So once again I launch whsrecovery.exe click next until I get to 'Rebooting your server into recovery mode' window at which time I power up the server (I think this time I quickly used the paperclip to initiate recovery mode but I still never saw blinking blue and red and never saw a blinking violet light). As soon as the server obtains an IP and begins to copy files over I hit next. Pinging still timing out even though the server has an IP but then suddenly I begin to get replies to the pings and the server goes into recovery mode! From that point on it was smooth sailing, server was back and running in a little over an hour after all the updates were applied.

Performing a recovery with WHS is never a joyful event which is why its always a last resort. Actually if you just install a new blank drive your server should boot into its recovery mode since it will not find any bootable partitions to boot from so your formatting the single 20GB partition was not really necessary. Actually if you just formatted the entire drive WHS would of repartitioned the drive and created the 20GB Partition named SYS of the Operating System and then using the remainder of the drive to create the DATA Partition for Storage Pool use.

Once things settle down and you have all your clients backed up again you can use BDBB to create backups of the client backup database from time to time. It actually works quite well and I have used it to restore client backups to other WHSv1 servers to act as a redundant backup to protect offsite clients which I don't always have access too.

Good Luck with your 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