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Help, My HP MediaSmart Server is Dead - Blinking Blue Health Light RRS feed

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    Have had the server since launch, never had a problem with it.  Today I can't access it from any of the computers.  Notice the health light is blinking blue.  Started to troubleshoot, have eliminated anything on the network being a problem, even replaced the ethernet cable.  Tried a recovery, but even the recovery software can't find the server -- nothing else has changed, such as a firewall blocking access, etc.  Any ideas?  I am stumped ... thx in advance for any tips, etc.  Right now it's a big paper weight.

    David
     
    Saturday, September 13, 2008 9:55 PM

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      Hi,
    Have you tried reseting the server - press the power button on the back of the server - the health light should start blinking. If it doesn't, you could force the server to reboot by holding the power button in for at least 4 seconds.

    Also, the lights 'blink' in a sequence, this sequence hanged depending on the possible error. 

    Health indicator codes when the indicator starts as blinking red
    Code Description Action
    2 blue, 1 red BIOS corrupted. Repeat power-on to validate. Contact HP Support at http://www.hp.com/support.
    2 blue, 2 red Memory failure. Contact HP Support at http://www.hp.com/support.
    1 blue, 3 red BIOS recovery source not present.



    Colin
    If anyone answers your query successfully, please mark it as 'Helpful', to guide other users.
    Sunday, September 14, 2008 5:11 PM
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      Hi,
    Have you tried reseting the server - press the power button on the back of the server - the health light should start blinking. If it doesn't, you could force the server to reboot by holding the power button in for at least 4 seconds.

    Also, the lights 'blink' in a sequence, this sequence hanged depending on the possible error. 

    Health indicator codes when the indicator starts as blinking red
    Code Description Action
    2 blue, 1 red BIOS corrupted. Repeat power-on to validate. Contact HP Support at http://www.hp.com/support.
    2 blue, 2 red Memory failure. Contact HP Support at http://www.hp.com/support.
    1 blue, 3 red BIOS recovery source not present.



    Colin
    If anyone answers your query successfully, please mark it as 'Helpful', to guide other users.
    Sunday, September 14, 2008 5:11 PM
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    Mine's blinking blue, too, and no amount of rebooting solves the problem. There is no red -- what's the action for 1 blue, 0 red?
    Monday, May 31, 2010 3:52 AM
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    I'm having the same problem. I did a server recovery which ended in a message that the recovery was successful, but when the server rebooted, it went into the blinking blue light again.

    Any ideas?

    • Proposed as answer by andylaw828 Sunday, October 30, 2011 5:10 PM
    Wednesday, July 21, 2010 2:56 AM
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    I'm having the same issue...fortunately all my data is on the other 3 drives. I have run Server Recovery multiple times successfully, MSS reboots but Connector Setup cannot find the server. When I remove HD in drive 1 (with the server software) and connect the HD with Apricorn DriveWire via USB to my PC, all the files are there, the server software is there...this is a mystery. Also, checked other drives and data is there.

    My extremely sharp IT person is also stumped. Have been searching online for an answer with no luck.

    We have also performed the recovery with the other 3 HD's out but still no luck.

    We are going to back up each HD to a 2 terabyte drive and probably do a full Factory Reset tomorrow on drive 1 and then put HD 2,3 & 4 back in their slot and hope the server comes back to life, if we don't find a solution or figure out what the constant blinking blue health light means. 

    If I find the answer or we do the Factory Reset and it does the trick I'll let you know.

     

    Wednesday, July 21, 2010 4:13 AM
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    Unbelievable...patience...after writing my prior I got a phone call...after 30 minutes in noticed the blue LED on drive 1 lit up and the health light started pulsing blue. The Home Server Connector found the server and started installing the Home Connector. So I think the key is giving the Server at least 30 minutes (maybe a few hours) after the recovery reboot. 

    I'm going through Home Server Setup...and will post the results.

    Cross your fingers

    Wednesday, July 21, 2010 4:18 AM
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    Hi T -


    I'm in the same situation.  Just curious if everything worked after all?

    Wednesday, August 4, 2010 5:20 AM
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    How's Life? Turns out in my case the system with a blinking health light is doing a chkdsk and can take some time depending on the drive sizes My system had all blue lights solid, tho we could ping the server - we could not access via console or rdp and had to turn it off. No one waited long enough at start but, I let it go for about 20 min and all the lights came on as normal Whew!!
    Friday, August 6, 2010 12:37 AM
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    my hp mediasmart was working fine until I plugged in an external USB HD. I tried to add the drive and it said it was in use by another program, then the server hung. I unplugged the USB drive and power cycled the WHS and now have the blinking blue health light. it's been blinking overnight, about 10 hours so far.

    is it really just going through a chkdsk?  

    I've never done a server recovery, where can I find info on how to do that if I have to?

    thx.

    Friday, January 28, 2011 3:13 PM
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    Hi, I'm in the same situation, too.

    The Health light is still blinking even put overnight. The problem always be there no matter doing chkdsk, rebooting or replug-in HDD.

    BTW, I'm unable to recover server now because it always show me "Failure" in step3 of 4. What does it mean??

    Could anyone resolve the problem?

    Thanks.

     

    ==

    Jason

    Tuesday, February 15, 2011 8:53 AM
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    Same issue here - Started a check disk, server restarted, now flashing blue, with no drive lights for 24 hours.  Can't possibly be still running, right (1.5 TB Drive)?  Can't remote in or even get a ping. 

    Anyone ever find an answer?

    Tuesday, May 24, 2011 12:41 AM
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    I had the blinking blue health light and no connectivity. It turned out to be a bad main HD.
    Thursday, August 22, 2013 8:03 PM
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    Mine did this, primary HDD failure.
    Monday, November 4, 2013 11:03 PM
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    Wow!  Looks like this is quite current!  Mine is blinking blue too and no drive lights.  I suspect I may have a bad system hard drive (I do see all 4 drive lights light up read when I power off/on).  Could someone please provide a pointer to the steps for replacing/recovering the system hard drive?  I guess it would also be good if I could figure out a way to connect the system disk directly to my laptop but I believe I need some sort of hardware to do this (take it out of the mediasmart server).  Is that the best next step?  (to mount the system drive on my laptop).  Presumably this is the top drive right?  I on power up I do hear an access and then nothing.

    Thanks!

    Peter

    Saturday, November 16, 2013 9:28 PM
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    Hi,

    I went ahead and ordered a Apricorn DriveWire via USB  presumably I can try to mount the topmost hard drive on my laptop and see if I can access it...

    Peter

    Saturday, November 16, 2013 9:33 PM
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    Hi!

    I connected the Apricorn to the top drive in my media smart server and after messing with it for a while it is clear that the drive is bad.  Interestingly when I do the same thing to drive #2 (also 200GB drive) it says the drive needs to be re-formatted - I would have guessed this drive would have been a mirror of the system disk. 

    I was able successfully mount the next 2 drives (and can see my files with the Apricorn which is nice!).  So the next step apears to be re-installing the media smart server software on a working hard drive...  I'm going to do some more reading here and see

    1) if I can restore the system image to another 500%G segate barracuda like I have in slots 3 & 4

    2) where the heck I can find the image to load back in

    3) wether the system once re-loaded will correctly identify and re-connect back to my data drives 3 & 4.  and what the heck is on drive 2 does it really need to be re-formatted i.e. has it not been used all this time?

    Thanks in advance for any help and/or suggestions.

    peter

    Friday, November 22, 2013 9:18 PM
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    Peter:

    Thanks for your post. It's a bit of light in an otherwise dark sea of no answers. I have an HP MediaSmart Server and all my stuff is on it. All my pictures and the music I've recorded with my band etc. Just today the health light has begun blinking blue and red. There's nothing I can do to access the files and I recently moved so I can't find the disks. It sounded I like you could see the files with the Apricorn. How does that work and can you get the files off the server using this hardware? I'm desperate to get my stuff back and I'd be happy to invest in whatever will do the job. I'll check this blog an again soon so if you get this and have any answers I'd be most appreciative. Thanks, Acegilco 

    Tuesday, December 10, 2013 12:47 AM
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    Confirming T Murray's solution...

    Years later, I know, but I had this same experience - the system HDD failed, I installed a new one, and successfully performed a Server Recovery only to find that the reboot resulted in the blinking blue Health LED (btw, the network LED was constant, but there was no network presence, verified by consulting my router who had no IP address assigned to anything but my desktop computer and my phone). I first tried rebooting again by forcing a power-off, but got the same result. Leaving it up after the forced reboot and waiting ~20 minutes resulted in it coming to life. It was on the network, viewable in windows explorer, and quickly found by the client WHS client disk.

    Thursday, November 27, 2014 11:02 PM
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    Hello,

    i have the same problem:  rebooted the server (with the power button hold 4 sec and restarted):  health-licht is blinking for more than 5 days.

    Question: when you replaced your system HDD, how can you perform a system recovery? With the server recovery disk? My pc/laptop won't find the server?

    Saturday, February 14, 2015 12:00 PM
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    I have had exactly the same problem for a little while now. I have tried rebooting and leaving the server to sort itself out but even if left over a number of days, I have had no luck.

    I have chkdsk-ed all the HDDs and they were OK except for the SYS partition of the system drive. I let chkdsk sort it out and it reported that all was OK. However, it seems to have made absolutely no difference and the blue health light continues to blink.

    Does anyone have any ideas, please?



    • Edited by Bustofa Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:48 PM
    Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:48 PM
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    Same problem here, I have just rebooted (4 sec hard reset) and health light is blinking blue, no drive lights are on and no network presence.

    My system drive is the bottom, No.1 - will leave overnight and see if it sorts itself, failing that, I will remove drives and add a new system drive only and see how that goes and report back.

    Saturday, April 18, 2015 8:27 PM
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    Solved the problem today.  Same initial problem, unable to connect to server and health light blinking blue.  Left it on overnight, in the hopes that it would fix itself.  It did not.  

    Resolution:

    1. Take out all drive except the bottom drive, which has the operating software on it.  Boot up.  Luckely system booted up and was able to connect to server again using normal means.

    2. Turn off server.  Insert second disc into server.  Boot up server.  Can you connect?  If yes, disc 2 is good.

    3. Turn off server.  Insert third disc in to server.  Boot up server.  Can you connect?  If yes, disc 3 is good.

    4. Turn off server.  Insert fourth disc into server.  Boot up server.  Can you connect?  No?  Disc 4 is bad (my case).  Turn off server.

    Took out faulty disc and hooked it up to laptop.  Immediately got warning saying hard drive is bad.  Laptop repaired hard drive by itself after that.

    Put hard drive back into server.  Problem fixed.

    • Proposed as answer by vspiegelf Thursday, August 23, 2018 9:40 AM
    Monday, February 19, 2018 6:06 PM
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    Great answer. Will try that now. (my server started with drive 1 in it, which is the lowest drive).

    btw here is the manual:  http://www.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01276565.pdf


    • Edited by vspiegelf Thursday, August 23, 2018 9:42 AM typing error
    Thursday, August 23, 2018 9:41 AM
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    Thank you so much for this awesome troubleshooting steps above.  It helped me resolve my situation.

    In my case, the Operating System Disk was Good  (thank goodness).  But the Disk in position 2 was Bad.   And the Disk in Position 3 was good.

    I have a few questions, please.

    My system has three disks (as explained above).   One of them  (Disk 1)  is the OS <g class="gr_ gr_61 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Style multiReplace" data-gr-id="61" id="61">disk    ,</g> and the Disk2 and Disk3  are data disks  (redundancy disks for folder duplication).

    Questions: 

    1) I assume that Disk 1  (the OS disk)  only has the Operating System  (windows home server) installed on it.  But that this Disk 1 (OS Disk) does not contain any data from Disk2 nor Disk3  (from the Folder Duplication data  -- redundancy data<g class="gr_ gr_72 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Style multiReplace" data-gr-id="72" id="72">) ?</g>

    2) All my Disks are  Seagate Barracuda drives.  Disk 1 is 1 750GB 7200 Drive.  Disk 2  (which has died and needs replacing) is also a Seagate 750 GB 7200 RPM drive.  And my Disk 3 is <g class="gr_ gr_60 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-del replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="60" id="60">a 1</g> TB  Seagate Drive 7200 RPM.     I am thinking of purchasing two additional Seagate Disks  (one for replacing the dead DISK 2),  and another one to try and clone the Operating System Disk 1, so that in case it dies, I can simply replace it with the Cloned Disk that also has Windows Home Server on it.   

    My First question is:   I assume that all these HP Media Smart Server disks that I have  (Disk <g class="gr_ gr_53 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Style multiReplace" data-gr-id="53" id="53">1 ,</g>  Disk 2, and Disk 3)  are using the NTFS file format?

    My Next Question is:  I assume that I should be able to take out the Operating System Disk  (Disk 1) and Clone it using my Cloning software?

    3)  <g class="gr_ gr_80 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="80" id="80">Also</g> I would like to mention that my local Electronics store, does carry Seagate Hard-Drives (very similar to what already have installed).  However, they are much larger disks  (3TB in Size).  I am fairly certain that the Size of 3TB for these Disks should not pose any problems for my Media Smart Server.  However...   If I <g class="gr_ gr_50 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling ins-del" data-gr-id="50" id="50">some day</g> end up having two 3TB disks, and one 1 TB  disk  (all running at 7200 RPM and all Seagate branded)... can I assume that I will notice some performance loss since not all three disks would be 3 <g class="gr_ gr_93 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Style multiReplace" data-gr-id="93" id="93">TB ?</g>   what is the cost to my performance if I end up with one  1 TB <g class="gr_ gr_71 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="71" id="71">disks,</g> and two 2 TB disks?

    4)  Finally, I would also like to ask something about the  "Redundancy Setup" (Folder Duplication) on my HP Media Smart Server.  I have to ask this because an IT friend of mine (whom I hired to help me set up this server)... had quickly gone through and set up my server... and I never asked him how all this stuff works.   So now I am finding myself learning much more (which is a good thing).   My question is:    I will assume that Disk 1  (the bottom-most Hard Drive)  Only stores the Operating System data and nothing else having to do with other Folders  (and folder duplication data).   I will also assume that Disk 2 and Disk 3  (store nothing having to do with the Operating System, but only contain the data for all the remaining Folders on the server)?     Can I assume that the Non-OS disks (Disks 2, Disks 3  and potentially a Disk 4 that I may add in the future... that these non-OS DISKS are using some kind of  RAID which is similar to RAID <g class="gr_ gr_247 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Style multiReplace" data-gr-id="247" id="247">5 ?</g>     Meaning that the Data is  "Striped" across these Non-OS Disks  (Disk 2 and Disk 3 etc...) and have some kind of parity information such that if one of these Non-OS disks Dies, then the other Disk will have all the data it needs?

    What I found peculiar when my DISK 2  died... is the following.

    My OS Disk (Disk 1) supposedly does not contain any Folder Duplication Data (meaning it is only strictly storing the OS).

    So this left me only with one Working Disk  (Disk 3<g class="gr_ gr_1232 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Style multiReplace" data-gr-id="1232" id="1232">) !</g>     I am wondering how it is that with only one DISK 3 left in my server,  that it was able to recover all my folders (meaning give me exactly the same working folders that I had available to me when Disk 2 was still alive?    In other words, if Folder Duplication requires at least two hard drives,  then how is it that when my Disk 2 died, that Disk 3 contained all the information I needed?   So for this Folder Redunancy (data protection) that the server has been setup to provide me... it seems like it is using some kind of Mirroring  (and not striping like I had thought).  Can you please elaborate on how this Folder Duplication stuff is working?

    Thank you so much

    Alex

    Monday, September 24, 2018 5:53 AM