I have a ex485 which has been acting up lately. The system will lose it's network connection first. I then manually reboot it and see that the health light blinks red-blue 5 times. Then the health light blinks blue off an on until it becomes solid white.

I remove all the drives and retry, and once in a while the health light stays blue in which I return each drive into it's bay and we're back in business. This time though after removing all drives, I still get the blinking red-blue, blinking blue, then solid white health light.

Any thoughts on what I should do next? I don't really know if it's a drive issue, but I'm willing to try anything. Just funny why the network is down on it.

Thanks!

Update: I removed the system drive and left the pool drives in. I booted up and saw minint- as a network device on my router. I then removed the pool drives and booted up with the system drive. This time, no minint- on the router list of devices.

Took the system drive out, connected it to my computer, and ran chkdsk /r on it. Got to step 2, 16%, then it tried to fix an error $130 at location 4320 I think. After a while, chkdsk quit. Tried running chkdsk again and this time it couldn't even find the drive.

For the hell of it, I put the system drive (only) back in the MSS and booted it up. Got the blinking blue-red, then blinking blue, but this time no solid white. It's still blinking blue as I type and even though the network light is on the MSS and I see a blinking orange light on the back network port, I still can't see minint- on my router's network device list.

So any ideas to the problem? If it's a hard drive issue, I don't mind buying a new drive to replace the system drive. I just want to make sure the server will work once I replace the drive. What a bummer, got some movies I wanted to watch off of it this weekend!

Side note, I have duplication on all my folders, so I'm hoping I'm not losing any of my data.

Thanks,
b

I was able to see the system drive again when I hooked it up to my computer. Problem is that every time I run chkdsk, I get:

Correcting error in index $I30 for file 94384
Correcting error in index $I30 for file 94384
Sorting index $I30 in file 94384

...then it chkdsk quits. Is my drive done? If it is, and I can still read the contents of it when I restart the pc and don't run chkdsk, can I just copy the files to another drive, pop it in as the system drive in the MSS, and then everything will be fine?

Chances are if you try to move files off it, it will error out/stop just like chkdsk did. Sounds like the drive is all but dead.

If I was you, I would hope the Nic is good and try a recovery (not Reset) with a new drive.
Hopefully none of your other drives are bad as well, as that will cause problems with the recovery. You might want to go ahead and chkdsk all of them just to make sure.

FYI, I have had bad luck trying recoveries, if you have data on those drives that you can't lose, you should start pulling it off now via attaching it to another pc via however you were chkdsk'ing. If you have backups, then just go for the recovery.

I almost lost my data twice with failed recoveries, now I use a non pooled drive and backup all my shares.

If the nic is bad, well that's another topic that COMP1960 has gotten around.
Goodluck

PS, harddrives are still kindof pricy now, but, we can always use another harddrive. Right!

_________________
EX470 5-3-08 CPU/RAM/BIOS/New Power Supply-For sale!
X510 3-15-11 CPU/RAM -Active.
X710 2-15-13 DIY Test 2012E.
X510 3-20-13 CPU.
X510 4-25-13 from parts.
EX490 5-12-13 used.

I don't mind buying another drive to replace the system drive, but I have 3 pooled drives worth of about 4TB of data. I don't see how I can backup those without buying at least two more drives!!! This ticks me off about HP MSS. I bought it for peace of mind that all my family videos and photos were being backed up and now there's a chance, unless I buy 3 drives and go through hours/days of work, that I may lose the data. Unbelievable. I even had folder duplication on and that still may mean nothing at this point.

Should I just call HP at this point?

You can call HP, but I wouldn't waste the time.
I know the feeling, I felt the same way, let down after spending all that money.

I was able to save all my data, yes it took days and I bought (6) 2TB harddrives for down the road.
I started over again, this time knowing not to trust the recovery or the PC backups.
I took the seagate factory (I won't use a seagate drive) put in a good 2 tb and did a factory reset. Got all the updates and set everybody up. Moved all my data back, (took more days).
Then I added another 2 TB good drive for duplication and then the best part, added another 2 tb as a non pooled drive and backup my shares once or twice a month. I have another non pooled 2 TB good drive that i rotate out.

1) 2 tb system drive / duplication on
1) 2 tb in the pool drive
1) 2 tb as a non pooled all shares backed up
1) 2 tb as a non pooled all shares backed up and kept offsite, rotate out with above non pooled

I keep base clone images of all the PC's and do not back the pc"s on the network.

Have a extra power supply on hand and all is well now.

Some stuff to think about. Hope it helps.

_________________
EX470 5-3-08 CPU/RAM/BIOS/New Power Supply-For sale!
X510 3-15-11 CPU/RAM -Active.
X710 2-15-13 DIY Test 2012E.
X510 3-20-13 CPU.
X510 4-25-13 from parts.
EX490 5-12-13 used.

Thanks for all your help Gardian. I'm done with MSS though, I still can't believe I have to go through this. I just bought 2 3TB drives for a good price and will next buy a Synology NAS. For anyone who wants my ex485, PM me before I put it up on ebay. It will have a working 1TB drive on it factory reset.