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Bad data drive in my EX470 - Now what? RRS feed

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    One of the data drives in my EX470 died recently due to a power outage.  I'm looking into having it repaired or possibly a data recovery service, since not all of the data on it was set for duplication.  What should I do with the home server for now, in case I am able to get the drive repaired?

    Is it ok to continue using the WHS as normal, even with one hard drive missing, until the drive can be put back in?  Or should I shut it down and leave it off until I know for sure what is up with the drive?

    If the drive is irreparable, I just remove the 'missing' drive from the WHS console, right?

    Saturday, August 21, 2010 2:52 PM

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    And thankfully, when I powered the home server back up today after getting the drive back from seagate, it recognized the drive and everything is working perfectly.

     

    Thursday, August 26, 2010 11:05 PM

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    If the drive has failed, it's effectively irreparable already.

    In this case, you can send the drive out for recovery (an expensive option; figure it will be north of USD 1000 to get a recovery firm to do anything), or use some other recovery tool if the drive will spin up but not read. I have no recommendations on what the best tool for the job might be; I have multiple copies (on multiple disks and/or media types) of everything I want to keep so I just toss a failed drive.

    In any case, you will want to remove the "failed" drive from server storage and (if you get any errors regarding duplication) add a new drive to your server. Without doing this, duplication may not occur, and files which had one copy on the failed drive may be inaccessible even if they're duplicated.

    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Saturday, August 21, 2010 3:01 PM
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    Thanks for the fast reply.  The drive spins up, but isn't recognized by the bios.  I am hoping that means it's a bad logic board, and have contacted a couple of places that sell replacements.  Not sure if that's going to work or not, but I figured it's worth a shot.

    I would think, IF I could get the drive working again, that I could put it back in the WHS, then remove the drive and let WHS copy anything off of it to another drive.  That's why I was wanting to wait at least a few days to hear back from these places before I give up on it and remove the drive in the WHS console.  

    Will it hurt anything in WHS if I keep the server up and running with one drive missing, or is it better to shut it down until I know for sure what I'm going to do?

     

    Hopefully, all I lose is mp3's and video files, as I have duplication turned on for family photos and documents.  Still, this was the largest of 3 drives in my server (1 TB, 500GB, and 120GB), so odds are good that most anything not duplicated was stored on this drive.

    Saturday, August 21, 2010 3:09 PM
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    Thanks for the fast reply.  The drive spins up, but isn't recognized by the bios.  I am hoping that means it's a bad logic board, and have contacted a couple of places that sell replacements.  Not sure if that's going to work or not, but I figured it's worth a shot.

    I would think, IF I could get the drive working again, that I could put it back in the WHS, then remove the drive and let WHS copy anything off of it to another drive.  That's why I was wanting to wait at least a few days to hear back from these places before I give up on it and remove the drive in the WHS console.  

    Will it hurt anything in WHS if I keep the server up and running with one drive missing 

    Yes.  Some files probably won't work because the alternate shadows need to be promoted to primary shadows and that won't happen until you remove the drive from the Console.  Not to mention you're leaving whatever data you have left in a precarious spot: no duplication at all.  You should follow Ken's advice.  (If you really want to verify if it's the drive or not, connect it to another computer and run chkdsk /r from there.)

    or is it better to shut it down until I know for sure what I'm going to do?

    Hopefully, all I lose is mp3's and video files, as I have duplication turned on for family photos and documents.  Still, this was the largest of 3 drives in my server (1 TB, 500GB, and 120GB), so odds are good that most anything not duplicated was stored on this drive.


    Saturday, August 21, 2010 3:26 PM
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    Ok.  I'll leave the server off for a few days then, until I know more.

     

    As for running chkdsk, that's not going to work so well when the drive isn't even seen by the bios, much less windows.

    Saturday, August 21, 2010 5:18 PM
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    Ok.  I'll leave the server off for a few days then, until I know more.

    As for running chkdsk, that's not going to work so well when the drive isn't even seen by the bios, much less windows.


    That's why I said "another computer".  :)
    Saturday, August 21, 2010 5:29 PM
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    Ahh, sorry, I thought that was implied.  I had already put the drive in another computer to test.  I have no way to see the bios on my EX470.

     

    I'm sure the drive is bad.  I'm hoping that it's the circuit board that's bad though, and not the internals.  

    Saturday, August 21, 2010 5:44 PM
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    Just a quick update -- I found information online about a problem with the firmware in some seagate drives, which results in exactly the symptoms I'm having.  I've contacted seagate, and they are offering the services of their data recovery company to reflash the firmware and get the drive working again, at no charge.  

     

    The drive will ship out today, and I'm told I can expect to have it back by the end of the week.  

    Monday, August 23, 2010 3:44 PM
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    That's good news, but don't be surprised if the drive doesn't reintegrate into server storage. Windows Home Server uses several pieces of information to identify drives, and it's possible some of them will be changed by the firmware update.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Monday, August 23, 2010 4:53 PM
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    And thankfully, when I powered the home server back up today after getting the drive back from seagate, it recognized the drive and everything is working perfectly.

     

    Thursday, August 26, 2010 11:05 PM