I have had faithful service from my HP Media Smart Server 475 for several years. I had upgraded my system drive to 2 TB and added 3 more internal and 4 external 2 TB drives. I've weathered OS crash, drive failures and other issues and fixed them all. The other day I used the console and did a 'shutdown' instead of a restart. When I tried to power it on, nothing. I checked the power cable and when I turned it on, it came on for about 10 seconds, then shut off. If I disconnect the power cable and reconnect it, it will do that again. Otherwise, nothing.

Any thoughts?

Here's another interesting question- If I were to buy another server- (I saw a 485 for sale on ebay) would I be able to just insert all my drives and turn it on? Has anyone tried this?

I hate the thought of losing years worth of files.

Thanks for any suggestions you may have!

First problem: My guess is a bad power supply, these servers take a special pinout power supply that you can find on ebay, the ones from England (I believe are the best) it has been a while since I bought one. You can find threads/how to's/youtubes on how to take apart the server, it is not super hard.

Question:
Yes and NO you can not just move your drives over to another server and go. You could, but you would have to do a server recovery (not reset) and you would do it with all your drives attached. Making sure the bottom bay drive got back in the bottom bay.
Now, one problem you may run into if you do that is some of the EX-48? series servers there was something different on some of them where they would not see as many drives in an external encloses as the other servers.
If you go that way I would go ex-490 or even x-510 (same hardware).

But the cheapest way would be to change out the power supply, they are the same on all the servers so even if you 470 turns out to be dead, the supply would be a good spare for another server.

Hope this helps, let us know which way you go or if you have other questions.
Goodluck

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[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

Thanks so much for a quick reply! If it were the power supply, would it power on at all? If I remove the power cord, and hold the button in, then reconnect the cord and power it up, it will run for anywhere from 5 seconds to almost a minute. That time I thought it was going to boot. I can get the EX485 for around $150. I don't know what a PS goes for, but I wonder if trying to fix this one piece meal will be cost effective.I know the 47x series won't read drives over 2 TB, any idea about the newer ones?

On my server, I would get occasional error message saying "Your Server May Have a Hardware Problem" that it was running at higher temps- do you think that may have been the fan on the PS? I have nothing to lose by trying some cheap fixes, but in a perfect world, even if I got it back up and running, I still have this unit that is old and will someday fail.

Thanks again for sharing your expertise!

if one of the power rails are low then it may reboot after all the devices come on line.
Such as the one for the drives.
The psu has several circuits for each different device . Such as motherboard,hard drives usb and esata ports.

A simple test would be disconnect all devices and drives except for the os drive and see if it boots.
You will get errors due to missing drives and devices no mater what.
If not then pull the os drive connect it to a pc and run chkdsk and see if it is bad.

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Popcorn C-200
Popcorn A-200
Dune HD Connect
Rasberry PI OSMC(KODI)
ReadyNAS RN316
Amazon FireStick
Amazon ECHO
AnyDvD
MyMovies

So based on your advice, I ordered a new PS. We'll see how it goes! Thanks for all your help! I'll post an update if that works. If, not, we'll try a new server with the old drives...

You might try cleaning, canned air or a reverse vacuum to blow the dust bunnies out could fix it. As you said, these servers are getting older and sometimes they can plug up the power supply fans.
I clean my servers at least twice a year and wipe them down and vacuum them weekly.

If you go for a ebay server, I would not get the ex-48? I would be looking for a ex-490 or even a x-510.

None of these servers will see over 2tb drives with the stock OS but the hardware will if you were to go down the different OS road.
You are at the same point a lot of people are, keep the server going or look for a NAS.

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

PS.. Great reading here as well:

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/wiki/in ... wer_Supply

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EX495
WHSV1

OK, so the power supply arrived and I installed it. Turned it on, and the health light blinked red a few times, then alternating red blue, then blinked blue. All the drive lights are on. I can't access the server yet. Is it doing some sort of self check? What does the blinking blue health light mean? Any ideas? Thanks.

Yo TC, A newbie here.. but have had experience with blinking health... AARRGGHH.. (lol) I think the mainstream recc's are to run checkdisk on your drives, that might solve, if not you will likely need to run a system recovery.. there are great instructions on this forum on how to do if you haven't... You also might rdc (if avail) to server and look at event logs...

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EX495
WHSV1

Thanks everyone for the help. OK, here's an update- I'm stupid apparently, because the network cable I plugged in wasn't the one that was connected to my router. Once I figured that out, I was able to connect via the console, and the only problems were two of my external were not visible. After resetting them, everything seems to be working. I have some file conflicts which I had from time to time before all this. (The health light is still blinking blue.) My main problem before this was an external drive that has issues. The drive sometimes comes up unhealthy or missing, and the conflicts are from that drive. I tried removing it, and the process doesn't finish due to a file missing on the drive.

P.S. I'm a newbie to this forum, but had spent time on MediaSmartHome but it seems they sold out... I've had this server for 10 years or better, and now it's maxed out at 16 TB with about 1 TB free.

Thanks again for all the suggestions! The power supply got me back up and running,

When it comes to computing, (and Windows servers), there is no such thing as "Stupid"... Your here... Your smart...

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EX495
WHSV1