I have had an HP home server for about 4 years. Never any major problems. I have a total of 7 drives attached to the device. The server is used to store media. I have all of the critical media backed up to the cloud. Here is
a summary of my issues:
- ability to access media files became erratic - files would play then cut out
- accessing the home server console became erratic
- I was getting notifications that the backup service was not running
- when trying to access the console, it would take 30-40 minutes, then I would get and error that the console could not load - that the problem was an hp[something].ddl file - would you like to load the console skipping this file or retry
- either choice resulted in another error message that said that the backup service could not start and that the console could not start, please reboot the server
- access via RDC resulted in the same issues
- on chance occasions, I can actually get into the console for a minute or two before it crashes, I looked at the storage tab and there are no indications of any hard drive failures
- I powered down, checked all connections, removed all drives, cleaned, checked connections and put them back.
- My main hard drive appears to be making noise
- Now, when I reboot the server, it visually looks like it is working - all the right lights come on and it seems like it should be ok
- it taking 30-60 minutes to become accessible - and access is intermittent
There is a slight chance its the NIC card, but based on the noise I'm hearing, I think my main drive is failing. My issue is that I can't get any meaningful access to my files or to the console.
Any ideas on what I can do?