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Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue
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Author:  Tiebo [ Fri Apr 14, 2017 2:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

Hi There,
I've got from a colleague one old EX 470 plainty of dust, longly stored in his garage.
On the MSS, when push the power button, it immediatly displayi 4 permanent red HDD lights on all spaces, with / withoud hdd drives.
As at home I have one other same EX470 which is still properly working, i've put the OS hard drive in the first bottom case and ... nothing changed, the MSS is not starting, no blinking leds on healh & network indicators.
I tested the VGA cable (I use on the working MSS EX470), on the sick MSS nothing is displayed on my lcd screen, so this is not an OS & HDD issue because it's still properly working on my other EX470.
I tested the starting from the restauration CD with / without a HDD ==> no success
I tested the starting from the restauration CD on the external CD drive ==> no success

What can I do ?
Does someone have any idea ?
Is this a BIOS issue ? Is there any way to force an unattended update from a usb stick on these EX470 to bring the BIOS to it's original features / settings ?

Thanks a lot for reading the post & any suggestion is welcome (except the shortcut option, i've burned the mainboard of my second dead HP EX470 ... ](*,) )

Author:  Ruben Rocha [ Sat Apr 15, 2017 8:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

I have never tried placing a os drive from one server to another server so I can't say if it will work or not.
You also did not tell us what the leds at the bottom are doing.
But anyway what you need to do while it is on is using a paperclip on the front at the bottom is a tiny hole.
insert the paper clip and release.
The bottom leds will flash a code in different colors.
count the flashes with each color.
For example
2 blue,1 red Bios corrupted
1 blue,2 red System drive failed to boot

There are more codes.
You can look at:
http://www.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01276565.pdf

Author:  Tiebo [ Sun Apr 16, 2017 4:06 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

Hello Ruben,
First of all, thanks for the reply you sent me.
I just tryed to use the paperclip to try to get more details from the leds flashing, but unfortunately nothing happened after pressing the smal button in the front panel's tiny hole.
The only thing as usual is that I have an IP visible by the ethernet router, and still the left bottom led in blue + 4 hard drives leds in red.
Sounds not good at all...

Author:  Tiebo [ Sun Apr 16, 2017 4:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

I put there a picture of the faulty MSS with the leds colors descriptions.

Attachments:
File comment: MSS EX470 issue
LEDS_SIGNS.png
LEDS_SIGNS.png [ 736.59 KiB | Viewed 27776 times ]

Author:  Gardian [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 8:01 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

Hello, sorry to hear, it sounds like you have a failed server.
IMHO from what you have described I would demote that server to parts.
1) the 470 was the oldest version of the micro servers
2) it will be good for parts Trays/powersupply/fans
3) by the time you "maybe get it running" you most likely could have gone on ebay and picked up a newer ex-490 495 server that would be much newer and better

Good Luck

Author:  Ruben Rocha [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 11:51 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

Yes it sounds like it is bricked.
But what you may try is, take it apart clean it up and reseat all the components.
Such as connectors, backplane,etc.
It may possibly be just corrosion on the contact points.
Since it sat in storage for so long.
You have nothing to loose but some time.
On the edge cards just use a eraser from a pencil.

Author:  Tiebo [ Sun Apr 23, 2017 10:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

Hello all,

Sorry for the late reply, I was in a business trip all the week and came just at Home today (french elections...).
Ruben, that's an interesting idea, i'll try to do this this evening. It's possible that's a connection issue, the mainboard is not really "nice". I wanna try the eraser solution.
I mean it's better to avoid to use 90°C alcohol & cotton...
Thanks a lot for your ideas :) !

Author:  Ruben Rocha [ Sun Apr 23, 2017 1:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

I would probably still use the alcohol as a cleaner. But the pencil eraser is just the right abrasive to not damage the contacts to buff off any corrosion.
Don't ever use anything coarser like sandpaper or nail file pad no matter how fine the grit may be.

A qtip will spread the alcohol around to clean any debris but it will not buff off any corrosion no matter how slight it may be.
Also don't forget that the eraser will crumble so make sure you blow that out of any recessed area that may prohibit any male plug or card to seat 100%.

FYI,
Be extremely careful with removing the backplane that has the sockets for the drives to connect to.
It is kinda hard to pull out and to much pressure can make you bump it against the sides when it pops off and damage some of the soldered components.

Author:  Tiebo [ Mon May 01, 2017 11:01 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

Hi,
I cleaned all the connectors, from the backpanel with the hard drives connectors to the mainboard where the backpanel is inserted.
Unfortunately this didn't change the symptoms, the blue fixed led on the front panel and the 4 red lights front of each hard drive are always fixed red.
This is a shame :| that I"m not able to bring this server back to life...
If you have another idea, it's still welcome !

Author:  Ruben Rocha [ Mon May 01, 2017 11:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

Since it is hosed anyway.
Did you try a factory reset not recovery ,using the cd's?
This will wipe all so I would suggest to just have the bottom bay drive installed.
Just make sure it is a good drive.
And select the most intensive selections like delete partitions, reformat etc.
if you want to get crazy. Before you do a reset.
Connect the potential boot drive to the pc.
run diskpart from the command line.
and do a clean all it takes a while.
If you never have used it be very careful.
you need to do a select drive meaning number not drive letter which you can get from disk management.
Like select drive 5 or whatever it is.
That will change the focus to that drive.

A clean all will wipe the drive, plus add 0 to all the bits.
It is not reversible so you must be sure you are doing it to the correct drive.
This will make the drive like new like it was just out of the box.
Then you will need to initialize the drive.

After that I give up.

Author:  Tiebo [ Tue May 02, 2017 3:26 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

Hi Ruben,

Thanks for your intensive support you provided me :D .
I tried to launch the reinstallation process from CD with a factory reset but the application wasn't able to catch the server (strangely I can see it's Ip on my router but he wasn't able to be connected from my computer).
I notice one last thing, as the "help" books from the CD mentionned that the RED fixed hard drives LEDS mention a default linked to the drives, I removed firstly my original SEAGATE 500 GB and they still been red. I also try to remove the back plane and then the RED fixed hard drives LEDS disappeard. Then I thought about two possibilities :
1 - the original hard drives suddendly deads
2 - the back plane is dead

For the 1, I checked it on another computer and ... nothing ?? I don't understand why but this one seems dead...
For the 2, I found on a well known website a rear back plane for some €€ and ordered it.

I'll see what will happen with another back plane & try to find another hard drive in order to check this is not the origin of the issue.

Again, many thanks I appreciated the help & assistance you provided me. :cheers:

I'll post the results of these last investigations. After that, i'll definitly stops with this server... ](*,)

Author:  Gardian [ Sat May 06, 2017 9:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

Sorry to hear you are having problems with your server.
The EX-470 was the first in the line so it is also the oldest and slowest of the servers. Not surprised to see more and more of them going south.
My first was the ex-470, I bought two of them so I would have a backup, then when I saw the x-510 was going to be the last in the series I bought 4 of them, running two now, one as main and one as a sync'ed backup to the main.
I have the other two for spares, one will most likely go to school with my daughter next year.

Anyway, wish you the best of luck, if you want to try and stay with the microservers I see the newer versions on ebay still. The ex-490 and ex-495 and the x-510 with all the cd's would keep you going for awhile, but they are all End Of Life. So it's just a matter of time before they will not go anymore.

People with Win 10 are already having some problems with them and even win7 system partition can even be a problem.

If you have any other questions or concerns shot out.

Author:  WalkinTarget [ Tue May 09, 2017 12:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

Just this past weekend I pulled my retired EX470 from the shelf, with the intent of either getting it to work or parting it out. I retired it about a year ago after it started locking up with a graphical glitch on the screen. I took an old tower and re-purposed that as my 2011 server, using the same drives from the WHS. After about 6 months, that machine then started crashing regularly with a stop -41 kernel panic showing up repeatedly in the event log. I used a known good working Seagate 1.5TB drive for the OS on the EX470, and damned if it didn't work just fine after sitting for months. I'm assuming I may have a PSU issue powering all four drive bays filled up in the EX470, or possibly just a bad drive in the thing, altho the drive health monitor add-in reported all drives as healthy.

So give a factory reset another try. I had to do it 3 times on mine to get it to finally run properly. I'm not even sure I have a healthy EX470 just yet, but this weekend I am going to attempt to put WHS2011 on it and retire the big tower, or re-purpose that for something that doesn't require it to be on 24/7. I've always loved the MSS, (it's been upgraded so many times over the years) and the nightly backups were just a Godsend for many times that I screwed up, so I'm hoping to have it resume its place on my workbench doing what it does best.

I do need to find some 2TB drives to populate my 4 bay Sans Digital eSATA box that I picked up from Comp1962 to replace some of the 1TB drives that I think are failing and causing my woes at this point. I'm hoping to get 10 years out of this server by the time I finally retire it for good.

Author:  Gardian [ Fri May 12, 2017 8:41 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Hp MSS EX470 - red HDD lights / power button in blue

Great story! It will be a sad day when Whs V1 won't go anymore :-(
I plan on running mine till then. I tried 2011 but didn't care for it.
I have a DIY with server 2012E on it for down the road.

As far as buying new drives, I buy only WD Reds 2tb for my main server, they run a little slower but cooler.
I have a second server that I back the main to and it has all Hitachi's 2tb drives in it, they run faster but hotter.

As far as running 24/7 I have Not for years. I sleep my server at night (shuts down about 11pm and fires up about 6am the second backup server stays off, I just fire it up long enough to synctoy the two about once a month.

I use a program called "SmartPower" on the server desktop to sleep them, it's free for home use. Saves a lot of wear and tear on the server and drives, plus the system does not suck in as much dust.

http://getsmartpower.co.uk/

The only down side to sleeping the server it once or twice a month when it fires up I get files conflicts and have to reboot it. I think it has to do with the DE code that was never quite finished, but it's not that much trouble.

I keep two extra power supplies on the shelf, back when I had the 470 that was the first thing that went was the power supply.

Good luck with your setup, again it will be a sad day when V1 is dead, I have been looking at the Drobo 5N nas for my daughter as I am getting old and she does not have the computer fixer bug like I do so the server and I will probably both go about the same time loloololol

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