Basically, something went wrong with my server, and I actually don't know what happened. It's been running the same disks for 10 years, and connector claimed that nothing was wrong with the disks, but it's hard to judge. I've since lost all the disks and manuals for this unit, thus making my entire situation much more difficult for myself.

All that happens now is that the Health Indicator light has a solid red light, with a blinking purple light, which I believe is recovery mode from my research. WHS connector (on my only last remaining Windows XP computer) will no longer connect to this unit and pretends it doesn't exist anymore. While looking at my router gui interface, it shows that it is still connected to the network.

HP support seems to pretend that they have no idea what this is, and tell me they can not help me; so now I'm hoping someone here might have an idea on what's happening and what I could try to do (I don't care about the data really, but I do use this system as a backup for my server machines).

Something I did notice as well though, if I play around with the little pin sized hole button at the front of the unit while it is starting, sometimes it does other stuff; like right now it has a solid Red light, and hasn't done anything for a while now.


TL:DR

EX475 is stuck in something, it shows a solid red light and purple blinking light. It doesn't show up on connector, but does show up as connected to my network. Appreciate any help I get.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-vJ2h7-j54

Well the bad news is there used to be a download site for the cd's for your model but it is gone now.
It appears that your server has entered recovery mode due to the os drive has failed.
Or possibly the battery for bios has died.
I never had a ex475 but possibly somebody will chime in with some resource to provide a new download location of the cd's

_________________
EX-490
WHS v1
VGA/PS2 Keyboard/PS2 Mouse/Serial debug board
Q9450s CPU
Stock Ram
ESATA Sansdigital Towerraid TR5M-B
Popcorn C-200
Popcorn A-200
Dune HD Connect
Rasberry PI OSMC(KODI)
ReadyNAS RN316
Amazon FireStick
Amazon ECHO
AnyDvD
MyMovies

Can the bios battery really cause this type of failure? Also, I figured one of the hard drives would go bad one day, as they were the original seagate 500gbs harddrives. Do you think if I put in new harddrives all together I can try to install it as a new system?

If you don't have the cd's then what do you plan to install on the server with new drives?
But I am betting on a failed drive.

_________________
EX-490
WHS v1
VGA/PS2 Keyboard/PS2 Mouse/Serial debug board
Q9450s CPU
Stock Ram
ESATA Sansdigital Towerraid TR5M-B
Popcorn C-200
Popcorn A-200
Dune HD Connect
Rasberry PI OSMC(KODI)
ReadyNAS RN316
Amazon FireStick
Amazon ECHO
AnyDvD
MyMovies

Couldn’t I just torrent a Windows Home Server (2011) iso, then install it on a new drive from another computer, and then put the harddrive back into the HP Mediasmart Server?

here is one guide for installing 2011
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/04 ... rt-server/
or
http://sbs.seandaniel.com/2011/04/how-t ... -2011.html

I think it is better than installing on another pc because you probably will not have the correct drivers for the mediasmart when you boot. Because it has different hardware than the pc

_________________
EX-490
WHS v1
VGA/PS2 Keyboard/PS2 Mouse/Serial debug board
Q9450s CPU
Stock Ram
ESATA Sansdigital Towerraid TR5M-B
Popcorn C-200
Popcorn A-200
Dune HD Connect
Rasberry PI OSMC(KODI)
ReadyNAS RN316
Amazon FireStick
Amazon ECHO
AnyDvD
MyMovies

Sadly it appears my server would never qualify to become a 2011 version, since it doesn't have enough RAM, and my was build with x86 infrastructure, and from what I can tell, 2011 is only x64 bit.

Would it be possibly to just install Windows Server 2003 or 2008?

Post Edit:
Windows 2008 did not work correctly for some reason, once I swapped into the EX475, and I made sure it was x86 version of it.

Post Edit Again:
Windows 2003 did not work correctly either, same none response as above. Just stayed at blue blinking light forever.

Unless you have a Debug Board to get a video output from the server its hard to know what is working or not when setting up the server to run an alternate OS. This is what makes working with headless systems so frustrating at times. Your server's hardware could possibly have other issues preventing it from operating properly or it could boot to a prompt you need to respond to.

I have seen the issue you first reported with the Health Light Blinking Purple and its not a good issue. When I encountered that issue many years ago there was a failure on the motherboard this could occur from an incompatible CPU, pressing the Status/Reset Button in too long of a period of time or for other reasons I might not be aware of. However it does not mean the server is fully dysfunctional but if you were able to get the server recovered you may not have full function of the health indicators like the temperature sensors, fan speed control, PSU Status, drive lights and what not. The server will appear to pinch a major fit telling you all sorts of things are out of spec because of a failure of if memory serves me correctly of the Winstron Chip or something like that.

Your System Drive may be corrupt but connecting it to another computer and running a CHKDSK on the drive might correct that issue or you may have to perform a server recovery and the only way to get the server into its recovery mode will be to backout the system drive turn the server on and wait till you see the health light in your case start blinking purple. At this point the server should show up on your network with the name starting with MININT followed by other things. Once you see this you can perform a server recovery to preserver your data if its still there or you can perform a Factory Reset but what ever you chose you may see the servers health light turn RED and the Drive Lights not funtional. If your lucky the fans will spin a full speed and if not then you will want to install the Fan Speed Control and have them spin at 100% at all times.

One thing I will tell you is that when you first turn the EX475 on the fans should briefly run full speed then slow down. If they stay running at full speed then count that as a blessing but if they slow down or never run at full speed when you turn the server on then place a fan infront of the server because it will need all the help it can get.


Now if you can't get anywhere with the EX475 and you happen to have a copy of WHSv1 OEM then you can use the Key under the server to install WHSv1 onto another computer but you will not have all the cool HP added features your accustom to seeing and it will be a bare bones installation but you may find it to run better depending on the hardware you have. Of course if you have WHS2011 or Server 2008 you may just want to install one of those onto another computer provided you have keys for them to activate the Server OS.


Good Luck with your EX475

_________________
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

Quite a lot to reply to, so I'll try to break this down.

Comp1962 - "Unless you have a Debug Board to get a video output from the server its hard to know what is working or not when setting up the server to run an alternate OS. This is what makes working with headless systems so frustrating at times. Your server's hardware could possibly have other issues preventing it from operating properly or it could boot to a prompt you need to respond to."

Referring to installing other OS, it appears that when I tried to install Windows Server 2008/2003 it functioned "better" then how it was operating before. It went through all of it's little things, but at the end though, the health indicator just stayed blinking blue forever, and it never read up on my network switch that it was active or connected.


Comp1962 - "I have seen the issue you first reported with the Health Light Blinking Purple and its not a good issue. When I encountered that issue many years ago there was a failure on the motherboard this could occur from an incompatible CPU, pressing the Status/Reset Button in too long of a period of time or for other reasons I might not be aware of. However it does not mean the server is fully dysfunctional but if you were able to get the server recovered you may not have full function of the health indicators like the temperature sensors, fan speed control, PSU Status, drive lights and what not. The server will appear to pinch a major fit telling you all sorts of things are out of spec because of a failure of if memory serves me correctly of the Winstron Chip or something like that."

When the server died originally a week or so ago, I had lost all information about it, including the CD's, because it just worked for so long now, and did it's job, I just remembered there was a reset button on the front of it, but forgot how it functions and such. I remember recently when turning it on, that I held it in for like 20 seconds because it wasn't doing anything... like most systems, I figured you had to hold it in rather then just press and release quickly.


Comp1962 - "Your System Drive may be corrupt but connecting it to another computer and running a CHKDSK on the drive might correct that issue or you may have to perform a server recovery and the only way to get the server into its recovery mode will be to backout the system drive turn the server on and wait till you see the health light in your case start blinking purple. At this point the server should show up on your network with the name starting with MININT followed by other things. Once you see this you can perform a server recovery to preserver your data if its still there or you can perform a Factory Reset but what ever you chose you may see the servers health light turn RED and the Drive Lights not funtional. If your lucky the fans will spin a full speed and if not then you will want to install the Fan Speed Control and have them spin at 100% at all times."

Running CHKDSK was one of the first things I tried, and it did not work because that drive is beyond repair at this point. Windows reported unfixable bad sectors etc, and when trying to run that harddrive on another computer, it just would go to blue screen ASAP, and even the blue screen was only seen on the screen for like 0.5 seconds, and would disappear as well. It appears I can do the recovery thing with the MININT thing appearing, but I still don't have the software to recovery or reinstall the server at all.


Comp1962 - "One thing I will tell you is that when you first turn the EX475 on the fans should briefly run full speed then slow down. If they stay running at full speed then count that as a blessing but if they slow down or never run at full speed when you turn the server on then place a fan infront of the server because it will need all the help it can get."

They appear to turn on full blast, and then slow down to a medium speed.


Comp1962 - "Now if you can't get anywhere with the EX475 and you happen to have a copy of WHSv1 OEM then you can use the Key under the server to install WHSv1 onto another computer but you will not have all the cool HP added features your accustom to seeing and it will be a bare bones installation but you may find it to run better depending on the hardware you have. Of course if you have WHS2011 or Server 2008 you may just want to install one of those onto another computer provided you have keys for them to activate the Server OS."

Well, sadly I do not have a copy of WHSv1 or any copy of thing at that matter, which actually the reason I'm here from my original post. I was trying to see if anyone has an ISO copy of anything I could possibly use to recover this thing to a working state. I don't really care about the data, I just want to try to get it working, it served one single great purpose, and now that purpose is void.




Thanks, I'm going to need it.


As a side note, what I noticed was interesting is that when I did install Windows Server 2003/2008 from another computer, and then moved it into the EX475, it acted completely different, but something was still wrong, especially since if I just tapped the power button, it went off immediately, rather then having to hold it down to get it out of that state.

I just ran into a similar situation with two ex470’s I have but Comp1962 saved the day with similar instructions. I would suggest to google for hp media recovery ISO’s on google and download the three that are out there.

I hope it works out for you.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not meaning to sound rude, but I wouldn't be on this forum if I could of just easily found the recovery ISO's on google. I'm here because I can not find them..

No problem. Please try the download link in this posting

viewtopic.php?t=5128

It’s a couple of posts up.

I hope you get yours up and running again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I believe you are referring to this post, right?


Let me try this and see if it works. Thank you for replying.

Yes that’s the one and I wish you good luck.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you so much. I do have one question though, if I was to just put brand new blank drives into this unit, would the recovery unit be able to work still (I'm really not trying to recover data, I'm just trying to reinstall the OS)?