Hoping someone can point me in the right direction here.
I have an Ex470 Upgraded to 2GB of Ram (4 - 1GB Seagate drives) ; already ran disk utilities and confirmed the main O/S drive was NFG and possibly another drive.
No biggie, thought I'd just throw in a couple of new drives, re-setup the server and go.
Have tried Full Recovery via several options; using the V1.0 Recovery/Restore Disk (realized after a few failed attempts that Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit won't work).
Tried using the V2.0 Server Recovery Disk for Ex485/487 (from a buddy) - both in Windows 7 Ult. 64bit and Windows XP Virtual Machine ...
Then found a V3.0 ISO and tried it both in Windows 7 Ult. 64bit and Windows XP Virtual Machine and finally on an old Windows XP laptop.

The server is connected directly to the laptop via network cable (no router or wireless in the middle). In EVERY attempt the result is the same;
Boot the server in Recovery Mode; the software (any version) find the server fine and proceeds with Recovery. Finishes the install and says the server is going to reboot several times etc ... It does, as it goes from magenta / red blue to steady flashing blue (rebooted) BUT that's it! The laptop(s) after 5 - 10 minutes begin "Searching for Server" and report back No Server Found ... Every time; regardless of which version I try I get the same error. Checked all 3 machines I have tried setting up from (Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit; Windows XP Virutal and Windows XP 32bit) - No Firewall or Antivirus on / activated etc ... When I pull the drive I'm trying to use (either one; I bought 2 Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM drives) and put it in an enclosure it reports back that just the SYS drive is present ... There is no drive or partition for the Data.

I've left the Server sitting twice now for over 8 to 12 hours; flashing blue as though it were still setting up the drive ... Nothing. I wouldn't think formatting and partitioning an empty drive would take THAT long

I'm hoping my search skills suck and I'm just missing a really obvious step.
Any assistance or suggestions anyone has would be greatly appreciated.
THANKS!

Wow, good job so far.
All I can say is, and I know it sounds like a stupid thing, but. [If at first you don't yadyada]

Sometimes it takes more then 1-2-3 tries.

You have a win xp 32 bit pc, correct? Take one of the seagates and format that thing in the external dock, put it in the bottom system bay.
Put the v3 server recovery dvd in the win 32 pc that is connected direct with cat5, let the dvd run and when it says to bring the server up do so, catch the BLUE/RED/BLUE/RED and press and release the little button to get it in recovery mode. Click ok on the start recovery box and pick factory reset.

All this is assuming you have backups of your data, if not, pull it off the other drives later with the external dock.

Goodluck, don't touch it for at least 4-6 hours unless there is a box to tick and if you see a lot of harddrive activity on the server wait to click any boxes.

I have been where you are now and it will work, you just got to get it just right.
I have to say I don't like any seagate drives, but you still should be able to load one.
Goodluck

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I personally prefer a 32 bit Win XP for my EX470 recoveries. I no longer use Seagate Drives in my servers although I realise others do and like them. Anyway if you install a drive with no OS on it and there is no bootable USB devices connected to the bottom rear USB port the server will boot into its recovery mode so there is no need to hit the Status/Reset Button. I never use the Status/Reset Button anymore to place the server into recovery mode, I just back out the system drive and when the health light blinks purple/red I plug the drive back in because at that point the server is in recovery mode.

I have performed many recoveries with very few problems but each time I do one I have to admit it does make me somewhat nervous which is why a recovery for me is always a last resort. Most of the recoveries I have performed were for testing purposes and not so much because I had a need to do one.

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Morning gents, thanks for the replies. Unfortunately no success as yet. Even tried bringing a 4th laptop into the mix to try and Recover / Restore this rig and no dice.
I'm reasonably certain the MSS is "stuck" in it's boot sequence as the lights indicate flashing blue; here's a quick summary;
- Originally (pre-issue) removed the MSS drives and ran chkdsk; found errors / problems that couldn't be repaired so I removed all drives.
- Purchased 2 new Seagate 7200rpm 1TB drives, installed just ONE for to perform a Recovery (picked Recovery because I was upgrading to V3 anyway)
- Entered recovery mode via the drive removal process (left the drive out 1 - 1.5", booted up; wait for magenta-red flashing to indicate recovery mode)
- When the MSS boots the HDD Bay lights say on for just a few seconds then no lights at all to indicate hard drive
- Software "finds" the Server great ... Gives the standard warning etc and Recovers relatively quickly - around 30 minutes or so
- The laptop then indicates the server will reboot several times etc ... Please Wait ... Finally the MSS now has flashing blue light and the software on the laptop begins searching for the server ... ends saying SERVER NOT FOUND ...
This process has been the same for many attempts / tries - re-tries on several machines (see previous post). Same result last couple days on a Thinkpad running Windows XP 32bit.
I've tried using a single drive and 2 drives.
I have removed the drives and checked them and one thing that is constant is that the MSS is NOT partitioning the primary drive. Either drive; newly formatted with just 1 partition and AFTER I try to Recover the MSS all I have is 1 partition (20GB) SYS ... The Data partition is never there.
I know most people are immediately going to think I'm not waiting long enough but I have left the MSS sitting many many hours (Saturday from 8pm to Sunday at 10am & again yesterday from 10pm to 7:30am today) - Nothing ... and the drives are brand new with ZERO data on them. I realize the Ex470 is slow but partitioning and formatting an empty drive shouldn't take that long.
I should also mention that the MSS (after recovery at the flashing blue) DOES show up on my Time Capsule as Minit_etc... So the nic is working fine. It just seems as though it's hanging in it's reboot process.
I should also mention -- if I press the power button on the MSS within an hour or two of when the blue light is flashing (after rebooting in recovery) it doesn't shut down. To clarify; a quick "tap" of the power button does nothing (as it shouldn't) I have HOLD the power button 4 or 5 seconds to get it to reboot ... BUT after leaving it for a few hours the same quick tap and it shuts down immediately. This is probably due to heat but just thought I'd add that.
The part that's driving me nuts is that I got my hands on another MSS (Ex 475) and have tried setting is up with my new drives (for testing) and it too does the same thing which to me indicates Operator Error (ME haha). I have wondered if possibly the Apple Time Capsule could be the culprit as every laptop I've tried has ALL firewalls, antivirus etc off or removed completely ... Even tried leaving out the Time Capsule and connecting the laptop directly to the MSS (with no router in the middle) ... Still nothing.

Any suggestions / guesses / hail mary would be appreciated !
Thanks

Another item to add to my post; prior to all my problems MSS was working fine. It just wasn't there one morning, with the health light flashing blue and red.
At that point I had 3 drives installed on the MSS; they were (are) as follows;
Bay 1 - Seagate Baracuda 1TB 7200 rpm
Bay 2 & 3 - Western Digital 1TB 7200 rpm

I removed the drives and checked them in an external usb enclosure. The Primary (Bay 1) Drive would run chkdsk on the SYS partition ok but the DATA partition would not. Tried a couple of programs to repair the drive but kept reporting they couldn't repair it. The WD drive in Bay 3 reported a similar type of issue BUT did report back that errors were repaired.

While attempting to get things up and running with my 2 new drives ( 2 x Seagate 1TB 7200 Baracuda Drives) I kept trying to repair the Primary drive from Bay 1.

My question(s) then would be;

1. Is part of my problem that I've been trying to Restore to Factory Settings on just 1 (one) single Seagate 1TB Drive? I eventually installed BOTH new Seagate Drives and it didn't make a difference. Is the MSS "looking" for the previous 3 drives? (how would it?) My previous setup was at V2.5; does that flash the MSS or something that is causing the problem?

2. I finally got my original Primary Drive reporting back ok and tried installing all 3 drives back in the MSS and tried a Recovery from my V2 CD; which failed again miserably. Could it be because I'm using the V2 disk when the MSS was at V2.5?

Again, does having the MSS at V2.5 flash the BIOS or something that would cause the methods of Recovery / Restore that I've tried numerous times not to work?
Just wanted to add that. Thanks to all those taking the time to repsond!
Cheers

Buckster, your problems sound remarkably similar to mine (as I posted in another thread just a little while ago). Hmmm.

Yes I'm going to have to agree with the "hmmmm" analogy
Question for you; did you try booting your MSS via USB?
I haven't but I'm wondering if that might be an answer ... Short of getting a video cable for this pig haha

@ buckster,

I spent some time reading the thread again. Can you confirm for me that the server your trying to recover is an EX470. I noticed you mentioned using recovery disks for and EX48x which if correct will not properly work with an EX47x due to hardware differences.

As far as only seeing the SYS partition on a new drive I believe this would be correct based on the point your recovery is at. WHS doesn't actually deal with the Storage Pool till after it reboots several times then resumes the recovery process.

This is most notable when the server is rebooting and the health light is blinking blue. Once that blinking blue health light stops blinking blue you will then notice the Drive LED's will turn on. I believe its at this point the DATA Partition is created on a new System Drive or becomes active if recovering using an existing System Drive.

Anyway its important to clarify what server you actually have and which set of recovery disks are you using.

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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

Hey Comp1962, thanks for the heads up. Yes, I mentioned in my original post that I have tried V1.0 (that came with my Ex470); V2.0 that I borrowed from a buddy (as I had upgraded to V2.5 on my Ex470) and finally V3.0 which I borrowed from my buddy as well.

When I first started this process I was trying to Recover my original drives that were installed (noted in my previous post; a couple of 1TB and 500GB) ...
When the Recovery process failed, and as I've been through this process before (thanks McAfee haha), I immediately removed the drives and ran chkdsk on them ...
Found that the Primary O/S Drive would run chkdsk on the SYS partition but not the DATA partition ... as well chkdsk failed on the drive in bay 3 (500GB) ...
Gave up trying to fix / recover these drives ... Bought a couple new one's; Seagate which I'm realizing was probably a bad idea haha ...

Since buying those 2 new drives I have been trying to perform a System Restore ... First few tries using V1.0 (a couple times V2.0) on an HP Tablet, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit ... Realized / found that was a bad idea (doesn't work) ... Installed a Virtual XP on the same tablet, figured it was worth a try ... V1.0 a couple times then V2.0 a couple more ... NOPE.

Tried using an old Dell with XP ... same procedure - V1.0 then V2.0 ... Nadda
Finally broke out the Thinkpad running XP SP3 32 bit and tired it using V1.0 ... then V2.0 and by then I had V3.0 so what the hell; give 'er a try haha
No chancey Mister Whalen ... So far I'm S.O.L. and to be honest I'm ready to toss 'er in the Recycle Bin A guy's time just HAS to be worth more than this thing lol
I didn't mention in other posts but I also tried calling HP (bad idea) ... I can't for the life of me figure how they've operated THIS LONG by just "Discontinuing Support for that Product" ... GM and Dodge should have done that and saved the hand out! haha

Looks like you been around the world and back and this is not normal. If your willing to try one more time lets stick with v1.0 or v3.0. Since you have a Win XP Client can you just connect the client directly to the server, place it in recovery mode and then peform a Factory Recovery with just a single drive in the server. I would also prefer you wipe out the partitions and just format the drive before placing it in the server for its recovery.

Now if the recovery takes place without any issues then I would have to say something on your network between the server or the client is interfearing with the recovery process. It could be a failing port on a switch or router, a bad cable or a bad switch or the router itself. The NIC on the server could be failing as well but the only way to determine things is to elliminate them which is why I am suggesting direct connecting the server to a Win XP Client.

_________________
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

Hi Comp1962,
The world and back doesn't do my "journey" justice haha ... Decided I'd give 'er one last try this morning using you idea's.
Just my luck ... Put the MSS in Recovery mode (via leaving the drive pulled slightly) ... Get the Flashing Magenta/Red just fine.
Insert a single drive (one of the new one's - freshly formatted) ... Run the V1.0 Recovery Software; finds the server in seconds (fast) ..
Gives me the standard warning messages etc ... Then craps out saying it can't format the drive! ... Try the other drive while re-formatting this one.
Same thing ... Checked and re-checked both drives ... Reformatted and even blew out the partition and setup the drive in XP Disk Management ... Nope
Almost at the end of my rope I decide to reformat / setup the drives with my tablet (Windows 7 64bit Ultimate).
Go back to the MSS; boot it up with the drive out a bit to enter recovery mode and? NOTHING haha ... Now I have just a solid RED LIGHT
Tried it a couple more times and tried the paper clip method and no dice. Just goes to a solid Red and nothing.
Fortunately I have this other MSS here; going to try it later, if for no other reason than there's no way this thing's gonna beat me! haha

Is there a "trick" to formatting / partitioning these drives to a minimum state (ie:easiest state to be in for MSS to setup properly)


Thanks for your input by the way

A couple years back I was having an issue with my first EX470 that I could easily say it was demon possesed. To get that server to do its recovery what I did with the hard drive was enter Disk Management, delete the partitions on the drive then I formatted the entire drive but did not set the partition as active. This was the only way I could get the recovery to work with a previously used hard drive.

Good Luck with the recovery and if you find the need to get rid of the demons in the server take it to Church with you next Sunday. (Kidding of course)

_________________
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