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Replace system drive proving difficult .................... RRS feed

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    So, before anything else, let me say I've read EVERY post here about replacing the system drive, and still there's no clear simple answer to the following question ....

    In a multi-disc environment (1 x 1TB system drive, 3x2TB storage drives) with all drives (including the system drive) at >45% full, and with all the shares duplicated, will a server re-instalation to a new system drive automatically "rebuild" all the shares with no data loss?
    The follow up question is "Does anyone know how to make an Acer Easystore H340 perform a server re-installation successfully??" and before you all recommend Acer support, let me point out that collectively they are less helpful (and less knowledgable) than a roomful of monkeys on crack!


    The back story here is I have an Acer EasyStore 340, which so far I've been enjoying. I have a LOT of data on this machine, and was relying on duplicating shares to get me past any disk failure issues. However, I recently read a post where one VERY smart gentleman decided to test the recovery abilities of his system. Having spent most of my professional life in system software design, I can't believe that I didn't do this myself before loading several TBs onto the server, but there you go. Anyway, my system drive is physically smaller than the storage drives, so I figured I'd replace it with a shiny new 2TB drive, and discovered that no part of Acer's instructions are correct. It seems to be physically impossible to do a server re-installation to a blank off-the-shelf drive.

    I have found one set of instructions that seem like they have a possibilty of working, but will mean manually copying data from 4 separate drives. I find this to be unacceptably tedious, so any help would be greatly appreciated, in addition, if anyone knows how to reach anyone of Acer's  executive staff that would also be appreciated.
    Thursday, January 7, 2010 10:20 PM

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    I have answered your exact question before (several times), but I can't find the posts.

    Here are your risks if a single drive fails in your server (any single drive):
    • Files in shares that have duplication turned on are safe. (there's another file shadow on another drive.)
    • Files in shares that don't have duplication turned on are at risk. If Windows Home Server has stored the (single) file shadow on the failed drive, then that file is lost.
    • Backups are at risk. In a stock Windows Home Server implementation, the backup database is not duplicated (it's the largest single consumer of disk space). If a component of the backup database is on the failed drive, you will lose some backups. Depending on which component was on the failed drive, you could lose all backups.
    • Add-ins and other applications can store data in the same disk area that the backup database uses. If they do so, they can choose to enable duplication for their "application folder". The risk for those add-ins is the same as for any other duplicated share.
    For any data not stored in the storage pool, i.e. anything on C:, it's not participating in any of the Windows Home server data protection features and may be lost if a drive fails.

    Now, as for your disk. Connect it to some other computer, and use your preferred tools to create a single partition and volume on it. Then try again. In some situations, it turns out to be impossible to get Windows Home Server to complete a server recovery (usually not with OEM units, though, unless they have failing hardware), and in this case that rather painful workaround you mention is all you have left.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Thursday, January 7, 2010 10:57 PM
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    I have answered your exact question before (several times), but I can't find the posts.

    Here are your risks if a single drive fails in your server (any single drive):
    • Files in shares that have duplication turned on are safe. (there's another file shadow on another drive.)
    • Files in shares that don't have duplication turned on are at risk. If Windows Home Server has stored the (single) file shadow on the failed drive, then that file is lost.
    • Backups are at risk. In a stock Windows Home Server implementation, the backup database is not duplicated (it's the largest single consumer of disk space). If a component of the backup database is on the failed drive, you will lose some backups. Depending on which component was on the failed drive, you could lose all backups.
    • Add-ins and other applications can store data in the same disk area that the backup database uses. If they do so, they can choose to enable duplication for their "application folder". The risk for those add-ins is the same as for any other duplicated share.
    For any data not stored in the storage pool, i.e. anything on C:, it's not participating in any of the Windows Home server data protection features and may be lost if a drive fails.

    Now, as for your disk. Connect it to some other computer, and use your preferred tools to create a single partition and volume on it. Then try again. In some situations, it turns out to be impossible to get Windows Home Server to complete a server recovery (usually not with OEM units, though, unless they have failing hardware), and in this case that rather painful workaround you mention is all you have left.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Thursday, January 7, 2010 10:57 PM
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    Ken,
         Thanx for a perfect answer. I had read your previous posts, but they were not as succinct as this one, which leaves no room for interpretation - wonderful! Now I just have to wait for someone who knows how to get past the Acer-specific problems, and I'll be in business.

    Regards
    Ian Telford
    Waterloo, Ontario
    Thursday, January 7, 2010 11:02 PM
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    I really have written just about exactly that several times previously. Someday I'll get tired of writing it and make it into a FAQ. :) If you read down to the bottom, you'll see that I offered a suggestion on how to get by the issue you're having with getting the disk recognized. I don't guarantee it will work; it's quite possible that the BIOS in the Acer units isn't capable of booting from a 2 TB disk. It is, however, worth a shot.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Friday, January 8, 2010 3:21 AM
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    Curious if the OP ever got this to work? I just tried replacing the system drive in my H340 this evening and the "progress" bar that pops up saying system restore is in process never began to move.  Before putting the new drive in the H340, I followed Ken's advice and mounted the drive in my desktop and made it a single partition prior to installing it. I also watched the network tab in the Task Manager there seemed to be no transfer of data.

    New drive I'm trying to install is a Hitachi 2.5" 320GB drive in an IcyDock adapter. 

    Have done a successful system restore before on the OEM system drive. Seems to be some kind of issue with this new drive.

    Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

     

    Thursday, February 4, 2010 1:20 AM
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    I did this recently.  I had a 160gb main drive, and 250gb second.  I bought another 250gb, and added it.  I added it to the Storage Pool, which formatted it.  I then removed the 160gb from the SP.  WHS said I had room to move it to the other drive, so I let it.  Then I removed the 160gb drive.  Things *seemed* to work, but I kept getting a strange "OUT OF DISK SPACE" error, despite having over 150gb on the main drive!  I deleted files, but nothing worked.

    Finally, I tried adding a third drive.  BINGO!  The new 500gb drive solved the issue, although I'm not sure what it was.  Still have 768gb FREE.
    Thursday, February 4, 2010 2:11 AM
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    Such out of disk space warnings may come from duplicated folders, which need free space on at least two physical disks.
    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf
    Friday, February 5, 2010 7:36 AM
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