Which is very true.

Hopefully I won't be doing this again in the near future... i'm just annoyed about the fact that this happened and I have no idea why and can't get it back to it's original state.

The only one that might possibly know how to put your SMI back to a running state would be Yakusa and he did write a reply earlier about it but did not indicate how to actually recover it to a working state so with that I am not certain if we can or not. I know that DieHard indicated he also had an issue with this and uses a USB RAM Drive to recover his server now he is a very resourceful individual and if he has not found a way to do it then I am not sure its possible well not today anyway.

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Toycelli, did you copy the files or did you restore the ghost image onto the SMI flash?

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I had used Ghost Explorer to extract the files into it.

The only version of ghost I have access to is the norton version that apparently cannot restore the .gho files. I have a trial version of ghost solution suite available to me but does not seem to have the funcationality to do it either... I googled .gho and found that only the older versions of ghost are able to restore the gho files as the newer versions have canceled this.

So I had installed the trial version of Ghost Solution Suite and the DOS based ghost32.exe was included!!!

I used it from within RDP and restored the entire disk using the ghost image. I am now able to boot off the SMI Flash and do a full server restore!!!!

I guess there is something more there within the boot sector that you cannot create from within Windows. Copying the files back in just will not do.... I have tried all different variations of active NTFS/FAT/FAT32 partitions and none of them worked.

Great to hear. So your back 100% and also have knowledge on how to get your server into recovery mode a multitude of different ways. Hopefully you will not have to work around this issue again.

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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 for all your work Comp1962. I have just upgraded my EX470 to 2 GB RAM before trying to upgrade to v3.0, but I can't get into recovery mode.

I have tried to disable the MediaSmart Server from System Devices to get to the hidden partition, but the hidden partition does not show up after rebooting. Could anyone please provide these files?

EDIT: Found the partition in Disk Management, but it is not initialised. I guess that still means the files are lost. Please, still need SMI-files for EX470

The USB hidden flash is a chip that is soldered to the motherboard. This was removed from the EX49x models.

Also if there is no drive letter set, it will not show up as a drive, check through Disk Management.

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After you disable the service and reboot your server has to discover the SMI USB device then it will load the drivers for it and thats when you will see it. DO NOT Change anything with that in Disk Management. Just wait for it to show up in My Computer as a local drive then you will see it.

So with that service disabled you will eventually see the SMI Drive. There are a number of things that can interfear with the recovery process like having a USB Device connected to the bottom rear USB port. Let me know what you see just be aware with that Service Disabled you will get server health alarms. Just ignore them for the moment. I do not want you to run your server long with that Service Disabled and remember not to disturb anything on that SMI device or you can create other issues.

_________________
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

Yeah it's unfortunate that we all have to find out the hard way on how to do all of this but for anyone that is having this problem. Now the only thing we have to figure out is why so many machines are losing their recovery paritions.

I had the same uninitialized unallocated disk as the above poster.

Here is a summary of how I restored everything back to 100%

1. Disable the HPMediaService
2. Reboot
3. Find an Image of the SMI Flash
- If ghost, you need the older versions of ghost to load the .gho file
4. Restore the disk image
5. Give the recover a shot!


The help is very much appreciated!!!
-Comp1962, Yakuza, Diehard!!!

Thanks Comp1962, but the SMI USB device is not discovered after disabling the device and rebooting. I have not connected anything to the USB ports. Will it eventually show up if I wait longer, or do anything actively?

How can I aquire an image of the SMI flash? I was planning to copy the files from the SMI flash onto a USB thumbdrive and boot from that one. Can I get the files from the v3.0 upgrade DVDs I bought, or the v1.0 DVDs that came with the server?

EDIT: I can see the "SMI USB DISK USB Device" under Disk Drives in Device Manager, but I can't see it as a disk under My Computer - only SYS (C:) and DATA (D:)

Since the disk is not intialized, you wont' be able to see it in my computer until you give it a drive letter.

Thanks. I've now initialized it, and it's now online, but it still has no drive letter. I can right click it and choose New Partition, but won't this wipe the disk? Could you please explain this step by step so I don't risk screwing up here

The SMI USB device requires no modification from the end user if its working properly. Once you see it at that point its a good idea to copy the files then reactivate the HP MediaSmart Service then reboot and be done with it.

Unfortunately its very hard to determine what causes the failure in the SMI USB area but what is clear from reading user posts this seems to occur after some modification or upgrade to ones motherboard but not abundantly clear if its CPU or RAM related or possibly the result of static discharge through improper handling. The last thing that can not be ruled out is if the motherboards have some sort of a failure rate in this one area. Its a very difficult thing to determine because there are so many factors involved and not every user experience can be say 100% clear meaning that just one detail however small is missed it changes the scope of things. So there are way to many variables in this equation to fully determine what is the common factor if any related to this problem.

I have seen users request the files even though they were able to recover their servers but still think they need them. Maybe a new message thread is in order to try to get feedback from users who have gone through this issue.

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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

Well mine was empty as well ... lost all the files.

What you will need to do is find an Image of the SMI Flash next. You can copy those files onto an external usb flash drive and use that to boot your server into recovery. If you want to use the internal flash, you need to restore the entire disk from the image because copying the files back into thtat partition will not work.