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    Yesterday I had what appears to be a hard disk failure on one of two 250GB drives - which was then reported as missing in WHS Console and obviously caused a lot of other errors. I replaced the drive and did a Remove - which was eventually successful and all shared folders which had been set for duplication were recovered OK. So far so good.

    But what seemed a bit odd was that the only client PC configured on this server is showing Not backed up - despite Server Storage reporting 69GB of PC Backups! Also, Network Health reported that the most recent backup for this PC was unsuccessful - and View Backups indeed reported that the backup for one of the 3 volumes on that PC (in this case an external drive) had failed due to 'The backup server failed'.

    Anyway, I then tried to configure backups for this PC - but this keeps hanging in the 'collecting information about this computer' phase at around 2/3rds complete.

    I have tried a Repair in Settings/Backup, which appeared to be successful, but still can't configure backups. The only thing I haven't done is a Cleanup - which I am reluctant to do.

    Any ideas?

    Jon
    Jon Stranger
    Wednesday, December 10, 2008 10:14 AM

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    Hi,
    if a disk fails, on which the entire or a part of the backup database is stored, the chances are big, that the backup database remains unusable. There is no redundancy in to maintain high storage efficiency (the other instance of the backup in case of a server disaster is usually the still running client so it makes usually not too much sense to use a lot of additional storage for a second copy of the backup database). Also there are ways to save a copy of the backup database manually or via script if you have enough storage for this on a drive outside of the storage pool.

    In your current situation resetting the database (loosing all what may be remaining from former backups) seems to be your only choice.
    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf
    Wednesday, December 10, 2008 10:53 AM
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    Hi,
    if a disk fails, on which the entire or a part of the backup database is stored, the chances are big, that the backup database remains unusable. There is no redundancy in to maintain high storage efficiency (the other instance of the backup in case of a server disaster is usually the still running client so it makes usually not too much sense to use a lot of additional storage for a second copy of the backup database). Also there are ways to save a copy of the backup database manually or via script if you have enough storage for this on a drive outside of the storage pool.

    In your current situation resetting the database (loosing all what may be remaining from former backups) seems to be your only choice.
    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf
    Wednesday, December 10, 2008 10:53 AM
    Moderator
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    The client backup database is not  duplicated by default, and most likely stored on the failing disk. In practice the means your backups are lost, unless you manage to recover them from the failing disk.

    The esiest way out would be to delete all backups (WHS Console, Settings Menu, Backup Tab) and then start backups again from scratch.
    Wednesday, December 10, 2008 10:54 AM
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    I have tried a Cleanup and another Repair with no joy - still can't get through Configuring backups. This morning the Console reported that the PC in question was 45% through a backup - but had clearly hung so I cancelled it. This it did, but then reported that the same PC was 66% through a backup - presumably another one and also hung! This one will not cancel. When I view backups and show details, again it is the external drive on the PC that appears to be the issue - but this was never originally configured to be backed up so I assume that somehow it has reverted to a default configuration. I suspect that the only answer is to remove the PC from WHS and recreate it - but WHS won't let me do this while it thinks a backup is still in progress. Any suggestions?
    Jon Stranger
    Thursday, December 11, 2008 8:54 AM
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    Hi Jon,
    if you assume it has to do with the external disk connected to the client, you can always open the console, select the client PC, click Configure backups and unselect that disk.
    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf

    Thursday, December 11, 2008 9:49 AM
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    Hi Olaf - the original issue as described above is that configuring backup hangs. And I cannot do anything while WHS thinks that there is a current backup in progress. Is there any risk if I just close down the server? Or is there another way of cancelling the hung backup?
    Jon Stranger
    Thursday, December 11, 2008 9:53 AM
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    Hi Jon,
    if you can still logon to the server, you could try to run Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Services and stop/restart the service Windows Home Server Computer Backup.
    (This method is also unsupported, but maybe less dangerous than a hard reset of the machine.)
    Good luck
    Olaf
    Thursday, December 11, 2008 3:37 PM
    Moderator