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    Earlier tonight, the primary drive in my server went belly-up, after threatening to do so for some time now. I was prepared for this and had a spare drive on hand, so I did a server reinstall. Everything seemed to go fine -- I provided the drivers for my storage cards twice, as required. The installer said it was restoring the data at the appropriate time. However, my data was not fully restored.

    The user accounts are still there. All the drives appear in the storage pool, and all are marked "healthy". There is a 3.2 TB gray area on the storage pie chart marked "system", indicating storage is being used. If I go into the system drive and browse the hard drives individually, all my files are still there, just not accessible in any useful way.

    What are my options for recovering this data? Is another reinstall an option? I am afraid to try it at this point, in case I really do lose the data. It's mostly movies and music I've ripped from my own collection, but that's MONTHS of work to rebuild!

    I have ten storage drives in my WHS, and only one spare 320 GB drive at my disposal. I suppose I could do a clean install, add that 320 gig drive, plug the storage drives one-by-one into another Windows box, copy the data back manually, and add the drives back to the storage pool as I cleaned them off. Ugh.

    I have done reinstalls on my test system numerous times, and haven't run into this issue before. That one has fewer hard drives, but otherwise, the systems are similar. Any idea what might have gone wrong?
    Core 2 Duo e4500 (2.2 GHz), ECS 945GCT-M, 2x1GB OCZ DDR2, 4x500GB SATA, 2x320GB SATA
    Sunday, January 18, 2009 12:52 PM

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    Hi,

    Personally, I would have another go at a re-install. It sounds as though the rebuilding process didn't complete for some reason.
    As you say you have a large amount of data, the final rebuilding of the tombstones etc., will probably take hours and the system will appear to have hung while this is happening, (One of my servers took nearly 9 hours).

    The only time I would resort to rebuilding and transferring, is if a re-install fails, but there is no reason why that should be so, especially if the server is now running OK.

    Good luck,

    Colin

    If anyone answers your query successfully, please mark it as 'Helpful', to guide other users.
    Sunday, January 18, 2009 4:10 PM
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    Colin Hodgson said:

    Hi,

    Personally, I would have another go at a re-install. It sounds as though the rebuilding process didn't complete for some reason.
    As you say you have a large amount of data, the final rebuilding of the tombstones etc., will probably take hours and the system will appear to have hung while this is happening, (One of my servers took nearly 9 hours).

    The only time I would resort to rebuilding and transferring, is if a re-install fails, but there is no reason why that should be so, especially if the server is now running OK.

    Good luck,

    Colin

    If anyone answers your query successfully, please mark it as 'Helpful', to guide other users.



    I agree with Colin.  Just make sure you don't interfere with the rebuilding process (no matter how long it takes).  You'll know it's done when you get the Welcome screen on the monitor.
    Sunday, January 18, 2009 4:16 PM
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    Hi,

    Personally, I would have another go at a re-install. It sounds as though the rebuilding process didn't complete for some reason.
    As you say you have a large amount of data, the final rebuilding of the tombstones etc., will probably take hours and the system will appear to have hung while this is happening, (One of my servers took nearly 9 hours).

    The only time I would resort to rebuilding and transferring, is if a re-install fails, but there is no reason why that should be so, especially if the server is now running OK.

    Good luck,

    Colin

    If anyone answers your query successfully, please mark it as 'Helpful', to guide other users.
    Sunday, January 18, 2009 4:10 PM
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    Colin Hodgson said:

    Hi,

    Personally, I would have another go at a re-install. It sounds as though the rebuilding process didn't complete for some reason.
    As you say you have a large amount of data, the final rebuilding of the tombstones etc., will probably take hours and the system will appear to have hung while this is happening, (One of my servers took nearly 9 hours).

    The only time I would resort to rebuilding and transferring, is if a re-install fails, but there is no reason why that should be so, especially if the server is now running OK.

    Good luck,

    Colin

    If anyone answers your query successfully, please mark it as 'Helpful', to guide other users.



    I agree with Colin.  Just make sure you don't interfere with the rebuilding process (no matter how long it takes).  You'll know it's done when you get the Welcome screen on the monitor.
    Sunday, January 18, 2009 4:16 PM
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    It took about two hours to rebuild the data, which DID seem much shorter than the time it took to rebuild even my small test server. The test server is still running evaluation software, so I thought that might have something to do with it. (Waiting ever so patiently for MSDN licenses of WHS! They're coming!)

    As long as it's safe, I'll give a reinstall another go, then. I truly don't want to go through that process of rebuilding and transferring everything myself!
    Core 2 Duo e4500 (2.2 GHz), ECS 945GCT-M, 2x1GB OCZ DDR2, 1x250 IDE (boot) 1x750GB SATA, 2x320GB SATA, 8x500GB SATA
    Sunday, January 18, 2009 11:31 PM
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    No luck whatsoever. I attempted another TWO server restore installations today, both with the same result. The data restore says it's taking place, and when the server installation completes, all the hard drives are members of the storage pool.

    But the shares do not contain any of my files, and the storage pool has a 3.2 TB (66%) gray area called "system" instead of the more usual breakdown. Am I completely hosed here? Is there something wrong with the data on the drives themselves? What could cause this issue?

    And just to be clear, I never interfered with any part of the rebuilding process during any of the three installs I have now attempted. The rebuilding process seems to take place normally, and the server reboots. 

    In the interest of full disclosure, I will give a bit more detail about my installation process. I only have a USB floppy drive at my disposal -- not an internal one. So, I can't get Windows to accept the drivers for my PCI cards at the F6 prompt. However, when the installation "fails", I have always been able to install the drivers from my USB floppy at that time, then reboot. The installation continues as normal and the data is restored.

    Until now. *sigh*

    I have used this method NUMEROUS times on my test server, and once on this very machine with the same PCI cards, same hard disks, and same drivers when PowerPack 1 first came out, so I would find it hard to believe that's what is causing the problem. In case that is fouling something up, is there any way to get Windows to recognize something BESIDES an internal floppy at the F6 prompt!?

    Core 2 Duo e4500 (2.2 GHz), ECS 945GCT-M, 2x1GB OCZ DDR2, 1x250 IDE (boot) 1x750GB SATA, 2x320GB SATA, 8x500GB SATA
    Monday, January 19, 2009 9:20 AM
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    If you cant get a floppy attached, you may be able after first reboot, which ends in a bluescreen, to boot from a Vista DVD or something similar, open the command prompt in the repair environment and copy the extracted driver files (i.e. sys or dll types) to c:\windows\system32\drivers and the inf file to c:\windows\inf from an already attached USB stick.
    After that swap in the WHS DVD again and reboot to get the setup process to continue.
    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf
    Monday, January 19, 2009 10:59 AM
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    I managed to scrounge up an internal floppy drive, and loaded the drivers at the F6 prompt. No change. I get the exact same result with the giant "system" segment of the pie chart, but with no data in my shares.

    I am very near giving up, but restoring 3.2 GB of data manually is going to be a real pain. Could it have anything to do with the size of the drive changing? The drive that failed was a 320 GB, but the replacement is 250 GB. I do have one spare 320 GB drive, but it is identical to the one that just failed (same brand, purchased at the same time), so I'm hesitant to rely on that for my boot disk.

    I'd be willing to buy a new drive, if there is evidence that would help. I doubt it, since I recently went from a 750 to a 250 in my test rig. The total volume of data stored on that system is MUCH lower, though, so I suppose it's possible.

    Any other ideas!?
    Core 2 Duo e4500 (2.2 GHz), ECS 945GCT-M, 2x1GB OCZ DDR2, 1x250 IDE (boot) 1x750GB SATA, 2x320GB SATA, 8x500GB SATA
    Wednesday, January 21, 2009 3:09 AM
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    Hi,
    seems your volumes screwed somewhat up or the tombstones have not been rebuilt properly, so that the data is still there (thus the huge "system" part), but not detected correctly as part of the shares.
    The only option I see is to log in directly on the server as Administrator (password is the console password) and check the content of drive D: and of the volumes linked under C:\fs\<volumemountpoints>.
    Usually the data or duplicated files should be there in the hidden folder DE\shares on all or some of these disks. (In Control Panel/Folder Options on the server on the View tab toggle the Show hidden files and folders option.)
    Check first, if you find any of your missed files here. (If not, they may be in some other folder, i.e. Found.000 or what ever may have happened.)
    If yes, I would recommend to create a new shared folder in the console and copy (or cut and paste) the files to a subfolder in that new shared folder via shortcut Shared folders on server on the desktop. If you copied instead of cut and paste, check the files for consistency (i.e. can you open them from a client) and after that delete them on the original folder.
    If completed, the system part in the chart should have been reduced, and you can put the recovered files back to the original shares.
    Best greetings from Germany and good luck
    Olaf

    Wednesday, January 21, 2009 8:52 AM
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    Oh yes, I had already found the files themselves under the mount points, but my data was a complete mess! I use my server mostly for full DVD rips as VIDEO_TS files. Each of those mount points contain all of the folders for my DVD collection, but each title only contains some of the vob files.

    For example, I have ten copies of the folder for the movie "Cars", but each folder contains only a handful of the actual vob files that are required to play the full movie. I also had duplication enabled, so there are multiple copies of each little file, all spread out.

    However, I managed to get my old hard drive working enough to boot from it again. (Freezer trick.) I can access my shares directly, and I am copying everything off that I have space for elsewhere in the home!. I will most likely end up having to re-rip most of my DVD's again, which is a pain, but not a tragedy.

    It's odd, though. The old hard drive will boot, and I can access my shares, but it's listed in the Storage tab as "not added" instead of "system", and the pie chart won't even load. It just hangs. Something is most definitely hosed about my installation! I will recover as much data as I can, then start fresh.

    Thanks for all your help, everyone!
    Core 2 Duo e4500 (2.2 GHz), ECS 945GCT-M, 2x1GB OCZ DDR2, 1x250 IDE (boot) 1x750GB SATA, 2x320GB SATA, 8x500GB SATA
    Wednesday, January 21, 2009 9:03 AM
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    Hi,
    a broken system drive can cause strange issues while dieing, because the OS on it can't do it's tasks as expected any more, but it does still something. Each crash during a write operation in the registry, on tombstones or files may cause them being hardly recoverable by normal methods.
    One of the reasons, why external backups are still necessary and the server cannot be the only instance.
    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf
    Wednesday, January 21, 2009 9:28 AM
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    Olaf Engelke said:

    One of the reasons, why external backups are still necessary and the server cannot be the only instance.



    Agreed, to an extent. Since these are all my own personal DVD's, the server WAS the backup. And since I had duplication enabled, I trusted Microsoft's drive rebuilding process to work in the event of system drive failure because that is what is was designed to do. I guess I will stop duplicating my data on the server, and use those drives to back it up externally instead. WHS does not offer a convenient and automatic way to do that, though.

    People are using these home servers as repositories for massive amounts of data. In theory, it offers enterprise-class redundancy and fail-safes to keep that data protected. It would be nice for Microsoft to allow us to make an exact clone of the system drive for that very reason. The rebuilding process seems complex and unnecessary if I could only have backed up my system drive!

    When I rebuild my server, is there anything to prevent me using a RAID 1 for my system drive? This would help prevent this problem in the future.  Does Microsoft advise against using RAID 1 for any reason?

    Core 2 Duo e4500 (2.2 GHz), ECS 945GCT-M, 2x1GB OCZ DDR2, 1x250 IDE (boot) 1x750GB SATA, 2x320GB SATA, 8x500GB SATA
    Wednesday, January 21, 2009 3:32 PM
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    I agree with you as well, that there should be a way to backup the system disk, and I am sure, that Microsoft knows about this request also very well.
    Many IT Pros are still surprised by the amount of data handled by those home server boxes, since it is often more than servers have as disk space in a medium company available.

    Would RAID 1 have avoided your scenario? Not sure, since it protects only against an instant disk dead. If the disk dies over a period of time, the caused failures can have been mirrored as well or inconsistency on the mirror drive created.

    RAID also makes a reinstall much more complicated, if it becomes necessary. Swapping the broken drive may cause the controller to generate a new ID, which is something, WHS also doesn't like.
    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf
    Wednesday, January 21, 2009 3:50 PM
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