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PostPosted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 6:43 pm 
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JimP wrote:
yakuza wrote:
I've written what I believe to be a pretty thorough guide to the Server Recovery process on the EX49x and DataVault servers. I'd appreciate any of you that can reviewing it, let me know if I've missed anything, and if the troubleshooting steps are helpful. Any suggestions or feedback is welcomed.

Looking at your guide, I can get all the way to the next to last picture. I then select either Factory Restore, or Server Reset... which then results in a failure instead of your last picture.

I am going to be away from my server for 10 days. I'll try again when I return.

/Jim



I would try it with a different drive.


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 10:18 pm 
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Alex,

Great job with the guide. I do have a couple of concerns. First is that we are missing the possible mitigative steps one can take at the error points. We all agree that failing at Step 2 or Step 3 seems to be the most common and there have been a variety of ways we have dealt with these failures ranging from assigning static ip addresses, to reformatting the hard drives, to copying the restore files to the client PC. Getting to those mitigative steps requires reading through all 5 or more pages of this forum and trying to decipher what goes with what. I'd suggest that we list these steps under each failure type. For instance if you get the Failed at Step 2 of 4 message, do this... or If failed at Step 3, then try the following...

Second, many of the folks on this forum can handle the troubleshooting tasks, but what of the poor naive souls who jump into a MSS and then at some point are forced to try a Server Restore or Factory Reset. If the process fails then they are in a bad way. If they can find this forum or manage to get someone from HP who can help, then they are still faced with the real possibility that they will have to do some pretty significant tinkering to the box which may be beyond their skill sets. Admittedly there is not much we can do about this point other than to ask HP to take another look at the server restore/reset process and develop something that is more predictable.

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 11:10 pm 
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I'm still stuck on step 3 and I'm not sure whats left to try.

I've tried a static ip, formatting the drive into 1 partition, no partitions on the drive, and an active partition on the drive. I tried it in WinXP x86, Win7 x64, and with 2 different drives.

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 11:53 pm 
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TechVet wrote:
Alex,

Great job with the guide. I do have a couple of concerns. First is that we are missing the possible mitigative steps one can take at the error points. We all agree that failing at Step 2 or Step 3 seems to be the most common and there have been a variety of ways we have dealt with these failures ranging from assigning static ip addresses, to reformatting the hard drives, to copying the restore files to the client PC. Getting to those mitigative steps requires reading through all 5 or more pages of this forum and trying to decipher what goes with what. I'd suggest that we list these steps under each failure type. For instance if you get the Failed at Step 2 of 4 message, do this... or If failed at Step 3, then try the following...

Second, many of the folks on this forum can handle the troubleshooting tasks, but what of the poor naive souls who jump into a MSS and then at some point are forced to try a Server Restore or Factory Reset. If the process fails then they are in a bad way. If they can find this forum or manage to get someone from HP who can help, then they are still faced with the real possibility that they will have to do some pretty significant tinkering to the box which may be beyond their skill sets. Admittedly there is not much we can do about this point other than to ask HP to take another look at the server restore/reset process and develop something that is more predictable.


That's great feedback, and I agree. This first draft is documenting the steps and hopefully exposing the complete process, next is to better outline troubleshooting steps. I welcome the efforts of anyone else who would like to work on filling in troubleshooting steps, just register an account on the Wiki, send me a PM here letting me know you did it and I'll give you edit permissions. Otherwise I'll try to update as I get time.

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 12:41 am 
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yakuza wrote:
JimP wrote:
Looking at your guide, I can get all the way to the next to last picture. I then select either Factory Restore, or Server Reset... which then results in a failure instead of your last picture.

I am going to be away from my server for 10 days. I'll try again when I return.

/Jim


Interesting, that explains why it fails on every PC you've tried, it must be an issue with the Server.

Alex,

I have tried a total of 4 PCs... and only one (my daughter's HP Mini 1000 w/XP) has been able to get to the prompt for Factory Reset or Server Restore. The others failed at step 3/4 or there about. The mini gets through the PXE... but fails when it is time to load the image. I believe the error has to do with not being able to make a network connection to the server.

Maybe I will see if HP Service can replace my server with one in which they personally have successfully performed a refresh.

I will be away from my server for 10 days... I will experiment more when I am back home.

/Jim

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 12:43 am 
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nippyjun wrote:
I would try it with a different drive.


I have tried with 4 different drives... and two different servers. I also tried doing it with 4 different computers, three different OS's, and 3 different cables.... and multiple hours on the phone with HP service.

/Jim

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 6:54 am 
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JimP wrote:
I have tried with 4 different drives... and two different servers. I also tried doing it with 4 different computers, three different OS's, and 3 different cables.... and multiple hours on the phone with HP service.

/Jim


Yours has to be one of the most puzzling cases of all. In addition to the drives, PC and cables you've tried, I assume you also tried the drive format trick and copy the restore CD contents over to the client PC trick. If so I'm at a loss to suggest anything else.

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 10:26 am 
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TechVet wrote:
JimP wrote:
I have tried with 4 different drives... and two different servers. I also tried doing it with 4 different computers, three different OS's, and 3 different cables.... and multiple hours on the phone with HP service.

/Jim


Yours has to be one of the most puzzling cases of all. In addition to the drives, PC and cables you've tried, I assume you also tried the drive format trick and copy the restore CD contents over to the client PC trick. If so I'm at a loss to suggest anything else.

Yes, I have done those too!

/Jim

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 3:54 pm 
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Its a festivus miracle!

It finally worked for me. This time using 169.37.37.42.

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:51 am 
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Hey,

Stupid, but curious question from an admitted newbie to Mediasmart servers (having had mine for perhaps 3 weeks now).

The old EX4xx servers (which I did not know, thanks for the info) have onboard USB Flash to restore from, like Lenovo's current WHS server. The new ones do not.

Would it be possible for someone with a bit of enterprise to create a bootable image that could be put on a USB flash drive that would work similar to the way the old Flash works for restoration?

Just thinking out loud.

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 12:00 pm 
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Somewhere, a long-long time ago, I saw that someone had done that -- or something like it. It sounded painful enough that I did not even bother to bookmark it!

I also recall (but forgot to bookmark) that someone customized the Server Recovery disk to incorporate all the updates. Don't recall off-hand if it also included the various settings for users, shares, etc. It, too, sounded painful -- but with some advantages over the flash change. (I really do wish I had bookmarked that one!)

This is an area I would REALLY like to see MS invest in going forward! I cringe at the thought of what I will have to go through in a Server Restore scenario. (And I expect to be doing that when HP's Version 3 software comes out!)

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 12:28 pm 
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LoneWolf wrote:
Would it be possible for someone with a bit of enterprise to create a bootable image that could be put on a USB flash drive that would work similar to the way the old Flash works for restoration?

Just thinking out loud.


Diehard has a blog post on doing that, though his way requires an old EX47x Server Recovery disk. I've not tried his method, let us know how it works if you do!

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 10:05 pm 
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yakuza wrote:
LoneWolf wrote:
Would it be possible for someone with a bit of enterprise to create a bootable image that could be put on a USB flash drive that would work similar to the way the old Flash works for restoration?

Just thinking out loud.


Diehard has a blog post on doing that, though his way requires an old EX47x Server Recovery disk. I've not tried his method, let us know how it works if you do!



Diehard's method should be offered from HP. It would be simple for them to include a utility to create the thumb drive or have a utility on their website for this. HP must be aware that the 490/495 recovery/restore process can be problematic.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 12:09 pm 
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I recently had to perform a restore on my EX490. What I did was the following and performed the process 10 times and had success every single time. I did the exact opposite of the 3rd dialog box during the recovery process.

1. Uninstalled the connector software
2. Turned off the firewall wall on my PC.
3. Turned off my AV on my PC.
4. Used the MediaSmartServer provided cat5 cable and connected the PC directly to the WHS.
5. Left the PC in DHCP.
6. I inserted the Recovery disk into the PC.
7. Pressed "next", then accepted the "EULA", then pressed "next" to see the green progress bar.
8. I powered up the WHS box, and paper clipped it during the blue/red light dance.
9. In no time, it was in recovery mode. I continued with the default "next".
10. When I got to the "Finished" screen, WHS is rebooting at this point (5 min is the dialog message), I plugged the WHS box back into the router, I plugged up my PC back into the router as well and continued with the message prompts.
11. Server was back online and being setup just like I pulled it out of the box for the first time.
12. Once the server setup completed I returned my PC's security level back to normal, Avast and native Windows firewall on.

Did the same thing with my kids PC - Vista Home, Netbook - XP Pro and my PC - Vista Ultimate many times with success.

Doing it this way I suspect that both the WHS PXE request (during bootup) and the TFTP ack (step #9) do not time out on eachother causing the process to generate the famous "N out 4 step failed". Also, I would like to point out that I did have those errors when using the Cat5 that is attached to my PC. When I switched to the HP MSS provided cat5 it never failed. I have no explination for that one there (I'm a big gamer and never have any connection issues with my trusty cat5). ](*,)

I think many will find their own unique way to perform a factory reset/recovery that will work for them. I figured I'd post the process that has hit 10 for 10 for me and offer a different approach. Thanks for your viewing time.

Later days.... :D


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 30, 2010 4:25 pm 
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Were you performing a Server Recovery or a Factory Reset on the server?

Did you really recover/reset the SERVER from EACH client? I do not understand what you did on other clients once you did the first server recovery/reset???

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