WHS System Reinstall: Saving Sage?

[PeteCress]

WHS has been giving indications that it's System drive is getting flakey.

I've repaired it 3 times already with no apparent data loss, but it seems to me like I'm pushing my luck.

I got a new drive, and eventually I'm going to attempt the famous WSH "Server Reinstall" - which purports to preserve all the share data.

But Sage is installed on C:.....

Question: should I be able to just copy everything "Sage" from C to external media, re-install Sage after the server re-install, and copy all those files from external media back to C and have Sage continue on like nothing happened?

Besides the obvious Wiz.bin, I'm thinking all those prop files for the HD200 settings.

[Chriscic]

My understanding is yes.

Incidentally, my WHS system drive also keeps showing in WHS as failing. It's been that way for a couple of months now and nothing bad seems to have happened. Also, much to my annoyance, the old system drive failed and I only recently replaced it with the one WHS is now telling me is failing... ugh.

I ran speedfan for the S.M.A.R.T. test, and the drive tested just fine. So who knows. I am not going to try and repair or reinstall unless something else happens.

[RocKKer]

I would go to the drive manufacturers site and download their diagnostic programs and check those disks.

westerndigital.com - data lifeguard
seagate.com - seatools

I have always used the DOS versions of these diagnostics, burnt them to a cd, booted up on that cd and do the long test, be prepared it may take several hours to run but it's the only way to really test the drive.

If there is a problem and you get it before data loss, you may be able to clone the bad disk to a new one before it gets unreadable and save yourself some system downtime.

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

Question: should I be able to just copy everything "Sage" from C to external media, re-install Sage after the server re-install, and copy all those files from external media back to C and have Sage continue on like nothing happened?

When I converted my XP system to WHS that's basically what I did. Since the hardware was the same I copied the Sage directory from my XP install. Installed and set up WHS on the machine with all the drivers, and support programs (IR blaster, etc.). Then copied the Sage directory back into the Programs folder on WHS and ran the Sage WHS install from the WHS console and entered my keys.

Sage worked like a charm with all my channels, tuners, favorites, STVs, placeshifter users, and history intact. All I had to do was set up the new drive locations for all my media and do the "move recordings" procedure from the sticky. Sounds complex but it was one of the easier parts of the WHS setup.

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

WHS has been giving indications that it's System drive is getting flakey.

It's probably not a problem with the drive. This issue has been nagging me too. I'm still trying to track down the real cause, but there have been reports around some of the WHS message boards that it might be a bug related to the volume shadow copy service.

I would do as others have suggested and run a diagnostic and benchmark tool on the drive to be sure it's not really failing. I've run my WHS for six weeks with the 'SYS drive failing' indication without repairing/rebooting and haven't noticed any obvious ill effects from it, so for me it must not be anything too serious. A quick google search (http://www.google.com/search?q=whs+sys+drive+is+failing) reveals it's a fairly common problem, but no real solution yet.

I got a new drive, and eventually I'm going to attempt the famous WSH "Server Reinstall" - which purports to preserve all the share data.

Be careful if you have important data in the storage pool. If you replace the system drive, you can't do a repair installation...unless I'm misinformed, it would be a new installation which means your pool drives would need to be reformatted and readded to the new storage pool. You'd have to add your existing pool drives to the new WHS installation as non-pool drives, copy the data off of one of old pool drives to someplace safe so you have one free drive to put in the new storage pool, and then copy data from the rest of the old pool drives one at time. Each time you clear one drive, you'll add it to the new pool so you have room to copy the next old pool drive. Once you add the last old pool drive to the new pool you can copy the data from the first drive, that you copied to somplace safe, to the new pool. If you do decide to swap out the system drive, be sure to read up on what's involved in replacing the system drive without losing the storage pool (http://www.google.com/search?q=repla...g+storage+pool).

[gplasky]

If your system disk crashes, you can just replace the disk with a new one and reinstall the system. During the installation process, it will discover your other disks from the storage pool, and based on them it will be able to recover all your data.

First, some backgrounder information on how the Drive Extender storage system works.

Windows Home Server, when initially installed on a machine, formats all internal disks. On the first disk (we call this the primary disk) we create two partitions and format them with NTFS:

C: (10GB) - used for the system
D: (the rest) - the "Primary" data partition

Subsequent disks are formated as one NTFS partition and are known as "secondary disks".

The primary data partition (the second partition on the primary disk) is special because that is where Drive Extender starts working it's magic from. This is where all "tombstones" are stored. Tombstones are really NTFS reparse points that DE understands. They are tiny files that redirect to one or two "shadows". The shadows are where your data really is, and shadows always exist on partitions other than the primary. If duplication is on for a shared folder there will be 2 shadows. If duplication is off there will be 1.

Any-hoo, during server setup (booting from the setup DVD) you are asked if you want to "New Installation" or "Server Reinstallation".

If you choose Server Reinstallation we will re-install the OS on the first partition of your primary (first drive), but will not touch the second (the primary data) partition if it is already there (if it is not there because it is a new disk it will be created). In this "Server Reinstallation" mode, setup will also NOT format any other disks (internal or external)…it just leaves them alone.

Near the end of the setup process something we call “RebuildPrimary” will execute which goes through all of the secondary drives and rebuild all the tombstones that should be on the primary (but aren’t because it’s a new drive). It turns out that in Beta 2 RebuildPrimary is invoked regardless of whether the primary needs rebuilding or not…we’ll address this later.

Caveats:

* We do not duplicate the backup database. The backup database should be preserved across a Server Reinstallation.
* You must have duplication on for the data you care about to guarantee that you do not loose data in this process.
* You must make sure that the duplication process has completed.
* RebuildPrimary can take A LONG time because it has to look at EVERY file on the secondary drives and determine whether there is a tombstone for it or not, and create one if needed.
* After the process is complete you will lose all user account data, add-ins and other settings on your server. You will have to use the Home Server Console to re-create all of your user accounts. You will also have to re-set permissions on all your shared folders.

Summary of instructions:

1. Primay disk fails (or you want to replace it with a bigger one)
2. Shut the system down, yankout the drive and put the new drive in
3. Boot the system from the Windows Home Server setup DVD
4. When it asks what kind of installation you want choose "Server Reinstallation"
5. We will re-create the 20GB system partition as well as the primary data partition
6. Drive extender will do what we call a "RebuildPrimary"
7. When done you will have to re-create user accounts in the console, re-setup Remote Access, re-install and setup add-ins, and reconfigure any other setting change you may have done.

So if you are replacing your primary drive you WON'T see Server Reinstallation as an option. It needs to create the OS partition and the DATA partition because neither of these exist. But it WILL see your drive pool out there and execute a "RebuildPrimary" that basically rebuilds the tombstones so that you can access the files in your drive pool. Now this could take a long time so you will need to be patient. Error on the side of caution and just continue to wait until you can start access the files thru the shares. Of course you will have to re-create user accounts in the console, re-setup Remote Access, re-install and setup add-ins, and reconfigure any other setting change you may have done.

Gerry

[wayner]

Wouldn't it make more sense if WHS had nothing on the primary drive except the system? That way you could replace the system drive without losing data that may be on the data partition on the primary disk. They should give you the option of installing nothing but the OS and other apps on this drive - I sure would like to be able to image my system drive and have a backup ready to go at a moment's notice - I backup my Sage folder to the software volume every night.

Maybe this doesn't make sense for an HP MediaSmart but I think it makes a lot more sense for a homegrown solution.

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by gplasky

So if you are replacing your primary drive you WON'T see Server Reinstallation as an option. It needs to create the OS partition and the DATA partition because neither of these exist. But it WILL see your drive pool out there and execute a "RebuildPrimary" that basically rebuilds the tombstones so that you can access the files in your drive pool. Now this could take a long time so you will need to be patient. Error on the side of caution and just continue to wait until you can start access the files thru the shares. Of course you will have to re-create user accounts in the console, re-setup Remote Access, re-install and setup add-ins, and reconfigure any other setting change you may have done.

Gerry

That makes me feel much better It must have been the WHS beta or pre-PP1 where I read some horror stories about recovering from a system drive failure.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by wayner

Wouldn't it make more sense if WHS had nothing on the primary drive except the system? That way you could replace the system drive without losing data that may be on the data partition on the primary disk. They should give you the option of installing nothing but the OS and other apps on this drive - I sure would like to be able to image my system drive and have a backup ready to go at a moment's notice - I backup my Sage folder to the software volume every night.

Maybe this doesn't make sense for an HP MediaSmart but I think it makes a lot more sense for a homegrown solution.

I haven't had time to test this but there should be nothing to stop you from imaging your C: partition. (Not the entire drive.) The issue with imaging WHS comes in when you image the entire drive (C: and D: partitions) The D: partition is your DATA volume and is where the tombstones are kept, This changes every time a file is copied to the drive pool. In theory you should be able to image the c: partition, put in a new drive, let WHS install and recreate both partitions, find the pool and then reimage just the c: partition. Like I said I haven't had time to test it.

Gerry

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by gplasky

I haven't had time to test this but there should be nothing to stop you from imaging your C: partition. (Not the entire drive.) The issue with imaging WHS comes in when you image the entire drive (C: and D: partitions) The D: partition is your DATA volume and is where the tombstones are kept, This changes every time a file is copied to the drive pool. In theory you should be able to image the c: partition, put in a new drive, let WHS install and recreate both partitions, find the pool and then reimage just the c: partition. Like I said I haven't had time to test it.

Gerry

I tried this and it didn't work. I created an exact image of my system drive onto an identical capacity HD of the same make/model, and things were all mucked up. As I recall, it would actually boot but would say the original system drive was missing any files would be lost, or something to that effect.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

I tried this and it didn't work. I created an exact image of my system drive onto an identical capacity HD of the same make/model, and things were all mucked up. As I recall, it would actually boot but would say the original system drive was missing any files would be lost, or something to that effect.

You needed to image the partition, not the entire drive. If you imaged the entire drive you had both the C and D partition. It is overwriting the D partition which holds the tombstone. Unless I am misunderstanding you when you say you imaged the system drive. If you mean the system drive is just the C partition then it looks like it won't work. (But I will test it when I get time to understand why it doesn't work.)

Gerry

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by wayner

Wouldn't it make more sense if WHS had nothing on the primary drive except the system? That way you could replace the system drive without losing data that may be on the data partition on the primary disk.

I've got the impression that the Tombstones go on a separate partition from the system - albeit on the same physical drive.

Yet the consensus seems tb that one cannot image C: and then re-image from that image.

Could it be that all that is missing is a "Re-create tombstones" command in WHS?

Or have I got it wrong about the tombstones not being on the system partition? Or are there other considerations?

[gplasky]

The tombstones are on the D: drive which is the second partition of the system drive. (The system drive is one physical drive with two partitions-C: & D If you image the whole drive that is where you run into issues. I'm trying to free up some time this weekend to test just imaging the C: partition (not the whole drive) and see if I can quickly restore a WHS box. (Not my production box. I have a spare box to test with now.)

Gerry

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by gplasky

The tombstones are on the D: drive which is the second partition of the system drive. (The system drive is one physical drive with two partitions-C: & D If you image the whole drive that is where you run into issues. I'm trying to free up some time this weekend to test just imaging the C: partition (not the whole drive) and see if I can quickly restore a WHS box. (Not my production box. I have a spare box to test with now.)

Gerry

Keep us in the loop on how it goes. I got he yellow warning saying that my SYS drive was failing. Every test I could do on the drive said the drive was just fine and the temps were normal. A reboot and its now showing as healthy again.
This on a brand new built system just a few weeks ago so I was leery of the drive possibly being bad from the factory so I will be watching it closely

In surfing the web about that issue I found a lot of people having similar problems with WHS. Some said it was because of a corrupt backup database, others had other causes. I'm wondering if mine was the backup DB issue since just a few days ago WHS suddenly said my laptop had a new drive. (my NAS) This after a couple weeks of backing up the laptop with no issues. I had it set up not to backup the NAS (my main machine is set up to do that in it's WHS backup settings).
Of course there were many others who said "yeah everything seemed ok until one day the thing just crapped out".

Anyway, I'm looking for a decent way to back up the SYS drive and/or the entire first drive with C and D on it.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

...the NAS...

What are you using for a NAS?

After six man hours down the tubes trying to do a WHS reinstall, I have decided to stop trying and just do a new install.

But to do that, I need something to back up my 4+ TB of existing shares/data into.

After pricing a few NAS enclosures, it dawned on me that, if the right parts are lying around (and they are) the cheapest solution for me might be to just build another WSH box and use that instead of a NAS.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

What are you using for a NAS?

After six man hours down the tubes trying to do a WHS reinstall, I have decided to stop trying and just do a new install.

Just curious-what kind of issues? If you're replacing the system drive you would do a new install on a new drive and WHS will recognize your existing pool. (You can't do a reinstall with a new system drive because it's not an option.)

Gerry

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Just curious-what kind of issues? If you're replacing the system drive you would do a new install on a new drive and WHS will recognize your existing pool. (You can't do a reinstall with a new system drive because it's not an option.)Gerry

There seem tb 2 requirements for getting the Reinstall option with a new physical drive:

• The new drive must be recognized (by the BIOS??) as Drive0
• The new drive cannot have any partitions on it.

By observing the above, I was able to initiate a reinstall, but by the time the reinstall had ended it had thrown a series of errors that seem tb around "Restoring the archiver data failed. Error 0x80004005."

Figured maybe it was something to do with replacing an IDE drive with a SATA drive, so I tried again using a fresh-out-of-the-wrapper 320-gig IDE drive - closely resembling the system drive that is currently reported by WHS tb failing.

Re-arranged BIOS's drive order so the new IDE drive was back as the first drive.... but WHS wasn't offering up the reinstall choice.

I'm guessing that if I spent enough manhours reading threads I could eventually make it work - but right now it seems like the rational choice is a new install followed by copying from backup.

Also, having that backup (NAS or NAS-like - with all the shares represented as-is) would seem to be a good idea anyhow.... offsite backups of selected shares notwithstanding.

[gplasky]

Just so you know on one of my tests I had just disconnected all the drives in the pool so that WHS could only see the system drive. Did my install on that and all the updates. Shut it down, connected all the drives and brought the server up. It recognized the drive pool and everything was fine. I don't know where you got your information but with WHS and anything after PP1 you will NOT get a reinstall option with a new drive. The only time a reinstall option is offered is when the D: partition still exists.

Gerry

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by gplasky

... just disconnected all the drives in the pool so that WHS could only see the system drive. Did my install on that and all the updates. Shut it down, connected all the drives and brought the server up. It recognized the drive pool and everything was fine.

Sounds like you did a new install - completely re-formatting the system disc (or maybe a new disc?) and re-creating the C: and D: partitions; yet your data from the old install was kept intact.

Have I got it right?

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

Sounds like you did a new install - completely re-formatting the system disc (or maybe a new disc?) and re-creating the C: and D: partitions; yet your data from the old install was kept intact.

Have I got it right?

Correct. New disk install. Data from pool was kept intact. YMMV so I can't guarantee the same results but the new install recognized the pool. It didn't ask anything about adding drives to the pool, The pool was there on a reboot.

Gerry