I am really getting into WHS lately. I now have about 15TB being stored and duplicated. I like this because its taken much of the load off of my main machine.
Anyway, I was wondering -- what happens if the system drive fails? I have seen some people post here that you just remove the bad system drive and put in a new one. During reinstall, I am supposed to see an option to repair. I do not see any official guides as to how to do this, however.
I am wondering if someone could please post some sort of guide with pictures on exactly how to do this process. I would greatly appreciate it.
I don't know of any "guide" that specifically explains it (although there are
Technical Briefs that may have it somewhere and even if they don't, it's a good read to get a better understanding of WHS). As you said, you replace the system drive with a new one (preferably of the same type, SATA or PATA), then boot from the DVD. Then, if necessary, supply whatever drivers are needed in order for WHS to see all of the drives. Once you do that, you should have 2 options: New Installation and Server Reinstallation. You would want Server Reinstallation. It will install WHS, then, during the final step, it will rebuild the tombstones. NOTE: This process can take quite a while depending on how much data you have and it may appear that it is frozen. Just let it run.
My suggestion: if you really want to make sure you're able to recover when necessary, simulate it now. (As a matter of fact, that is also something you should do for restoring a backup to a client PC.) Boot from the DVD and see if you get Server Reinstallation as an option. If you do, then you should be fine if the need ever arises. Or, better yet, if you are really worried about it, pull your primary drive and replace it with a new one, then see if you get Server Reinstallation as an option.
