system drive fail- somebody remind me why WHS is so wonderful?

[Olias]

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

Holy crap, another few hours in the freezer did the trick!

Ahh, the freezer trick. I successfully tried that on a friends system disk several months ago. It would only work while it was cold, so I ended up placing the drive in our freezer with a long cable while I ran imaging software. Managed to image the whole drive to a new one.

Attached is a picture of what I call "PC ala mode".

[stevech]

Originally Posted by Olias

Ahh, the freezer trick. I successfully tried that on a friends system disk several months ago. It would only work while it was cold, so I ended up placing the drive in our freezer with a long cable while I ran imaging software. Managed to image the whole drive to a new one.

Attached is a picture of what I call "PC ala mode".

shall we say..... Cool!

[btrcp2000]

Okay, this is ridiculous and I regret ever relying on WHS. While I have my sage directory backed up safely due to freezing the drive, I cannot do anything useful with it as WHS will not make it all the way through a "server reinstallation."

I have a new HDD, and have successfully installed a new version of WHS before I learned that I needed to be doing a "server reinstall". Took forever to get it to show that even as an option, but finally got that part sorted out. I have now had four attempts at reinstall fail with the message "qs.ini NOT FOUND". I have tried both an internal dvd drive and external. What really sucks is that it takes 30-40 min for it to reach this point to see if the latest tweak will work.

Supposedly my data (pictures/music/etc in duplicated folders) is safe, but I certainly can't see it on the server, and it never reaches the point where it rebuilds tombstones.

Please help, this is pushing me extremely close to abandoning sage. I just don't have the time to babysit it anymore.

[davephan]

Your signature still says XP. Couldn't you switch back to XP and use RAID to protect the video files rather than abandoning SageTV? If you use RAID, I would recommend RAID 1 pairs since it is much safer than RAID 5. RAID 6 is also safer than RAID 5 since two drives can fail without any data loss. You don't need to have the OS itself on a RAID.The XP operating system could be protected by images and could be recovered in about 30 minutes - most of that time is unattended. So, you're only a half hour away from a working system, instead of days, weeks, or longer.

Dave

[btrcp2000]

I'm considering that, but dammit, what the hell did I pay for WHS for?

I have always avoided RAID because I just have no experience with it, and it always seemed like just one more learning curve and system to monitor. I had acronis true image on my xp box, it was okay, but even it would fail from time to time inexplicably. WHS has been rock solid great for backing up the other pcs and duplicating files, it is just so disappointing that I got burned so quickly by the lack of "self backup".

I think the answer will be a separate xp/win7 sage box and a whs box, maybe even prebuilt for once so I can piss an moan to tech support occasionally and make it someone else's problem. And this time around, no add-ins or extra crap, just backup my pcs and data files.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

Okay, this is ridiculous and I regret ever relying on WHS. While I have my sage directory backed up safely due to freezing the drive, I cannot do anything useful with it as WHS will not make it all the way through a "server reinstallation."

I have a new HDD, and have successfully installed a new version of WHS before I learned that I needed to be doing a "server reinstall". Took forever to get it to show that even as an option, but finally got that part sorted out. I have now had four attempts at reinstall fail with the message "qs.ini NOT FOUND". I have tried both an internal dvd drive and external. What really sucks is that it takes 30-40 min for it to reach this point to see if the latest tweak will work.

Supposedly my data (pictures/music/etc in duplicated folders) is safe, but I certainly can't see it on the server, and it never reaches the point where it rebuilds tombstones.

Please help, this is pushing me extremely close to abandoning sage. I just don't have the time to babysit it anymore.

Just create an empty qs.ini file (no .txt extension on it please. make sure you can see extensions) in the C:\. Also I can't tell what your WHS setup is but make sure when you do the reinstallation and the blue screen text based installation starts you quickly push the F6 button and load whatever drivers may be required for your mb to recognize all the drives. If they are all just standard sata and no raid config you may not need to do this nut if you had ever used this setup and after installing Windows it needed a driver to recognize your drives you need to F6 and load those drivers from a floppy or USB drive. And you may actually need a floppy to load them. One, the other or both should get you past your error.

Gerry

[btrcp2000]

Already tried the empty qs.ini (double checked no txt). It eliminated the qs error, but threw up something else. Tried another reboot, now it complains that preserver won;t start, so I can't get to the log sheet again. Starting from scratch again.

Re: f6, do I still need to do that if it sees all my drives? I thought that was only when they didn't all show up? On eissue I have had is that I cannot get it to see the SYS drive as Drive 0. It is Drive 2, but it still allows server reinstall.

[btrcp2000]

Okay, latest attempt is now back to not having the server reinstall option. I removed the whs dvd and just let it boot, it complains about the preserver service, then tries to continue with whs, crashes, and here is the last few bits of the log:

2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] Progress: 60%
[2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] Package umwhsarch already installed.
[2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] Progress: 65%
[2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] Package umddns already installed.
[2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] Progress: 70%
[2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] Package umpf already installed.
[2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] Progress: 80%
[2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] Progress: 80%
[2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] Progress: 82%
[2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] Creating directory D:\shares\Software\Home Server Connector Software
[2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] ERROR: Failed to copy c:\WHS\WHSConnector.msi to D:\shares\Software\Home Server Connector Software\WHSConnector.msi (0x80070780)
[TRACE] PublishFiles : Exited (0x80070780)
[TRACE] Step_InstallQ : Exited (0x80070780)
[2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] Installing Windows Home Server failed. Error 0x80070780.
[TRACE] Looking for template _:\qs.ini
[2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] Found file C:\qs.ini
[2/6/2010 10:58:09 AM c44] MessageBox: Installing Windows Home Server failed: The file can not be accessed by the system.

(error code 0x80070780).
[2/6/2010 11:02:05 AM c44] Windows Home Server setup failed. The error code is 0x80070780. Please correct the problem and reboot to restart the setup program.
[TRACE] Looking for template _:\qs.ini
[2/6/2010 11:02:05 AM c44] Found file C:\qs.ini
[2/6/2010 11:02:06 AM c44] MessageBox: Windows Home Server installation failed. Do you want to view the installation log file?
[2/6/2010 11:02:07 AM c44] Spawning process [notepad.exe "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Home Server\logs\q_setup.log"]



Any thoughts are appreciated, going out to play in the snow with the kids.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

Re: f6, do I still need to do that if it sees all my drives? I thought that was only when they didn't all show up? On eissue I have had is that I cannot get it to see the SYS drive as Drive 0. It is Drive 2, but it still allows server reinstall.

I think the answer is it depends. I had a mb where WHS would not see the drives so obviously it needed the drivers. I had tested with a different mb where it saw the drives but after loding WHS it loaded "a better driver" from the manufacturer which exposed more options in the properties tab. As a rule of thumb I use the "if the manufacturer provides a driver for the mb it should probably be used" and I would install it with F6. In your error log you are getting an error of trying to copy an .msi from C: to D: so unless that files don't exist on C: it might not be able to create D:. (or D: isn't where WHS is expecting it to be. Like drive 0) The other issue I would correct is I always have my system drive as drive 0. You may want to try a new install and disconnect all the drives except your system drives and insure it is connected to the Sata 0 connector cable. Do a full install with 1 drive. If that succeeds shutdown and reconnect the other drives and boot to the DVD one last time and see if you get a reinstall option.

Gerry

[davephan]

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

I'm considering that, but dammit, what the hell did I pay for WHS for?

I have always avoided RAID because I just have no experience with it, and it always seemed like just one more learning curve and system to monitor. I had acronis true image on my xp box, it was okay, but even it would fail from time to time inexplicably. WHS has been rock solid great for backing up the other pcs and duplicating files, it is just so disappointing that I got burned so quickly by the lack of "self backup".

I think the answer will be a separate xp/win7 sage box and a whs box, maybe even prebuilt for once so I can piss an moan to tech support occasionally and make it someone else's problem. And this time around, no add-ins or extra crap, just backup my pcs and data files.

RAID has been around for a long time, and it is proven technology. RAID is easy and it works well. RAID 5 is a bit too risky for me, but RAID 1 pairs or RAID 6 is much safer. I did have a 2 TB drive fail about a week after installation. The data was protected by the other drive in the pair. After the drive failed, the bad drive is simply replaced, then rebuilding can take many hours to complete. After the rebuilding process is completed, you are protected again from other drive failure on that drive pair.

My Acronis Workstation 10 with Universal Restore is reliable. I also continue to use Ghost 9, which I have used for years, and is also reliable.

It is very annoying when the OS drive fails, no matter which OS you use. It's very nice to have everything back working in about half an hour, most of that half hour doing something else while the system recovers.

Dave

[gplasky]

This may be the simple answer to anyone building a WHS or to add to their existing one.

Safe Server Module

A 3.5 inch form factor case the will hold 2 x 2.5" drives with an embedded RAID 0 or RAID 1 configuration. Set this to RAID 1 and use it as your WHS system drive and you won't need to worry about drive failures.

Gerry

[wayner]

I had the same issue with problems getting the server reinstall option and then this error with qs.ini or other errors about 99% of the way through a reinstall. I will try to see if I can find how I resolved these problems.

What I ended up doing with the data was manually copying the data off of the drives. In other words, I connected the data drives to the WHS PC, did not add them to the storage pool, and manually went in and copied the data to the storage pool. This may require an additional hard drive and can take a few days if you have several terabytes of data. I also cursed WHS as this was happening.

[btrcp2000]

okay, wayner, now you're scaring me. i thought i had to have the data drives connected so that it would allow a server reinstall of the OS only, and leave the data files untouched, just taking a bunch of time to rescan everything. So now the drives are all there, and the directories i set up are showing, but there are no files in them.

Please tell me I didn't somehow maintain the directories but lose trhe files at the same time?

[btrcp2000]

Two drives pulled and installed elsewhere, no files. At no point were they connected during a new installation, only during the multiple failed reinstalls.

I think I'm going to be sick. To hell with sage at this point, it looks like I've lost all music and the last six months of kid pictures.

Please tell me there is something special you have to do to view files on a non-whs pc?

[robogeek]

If the drives were formatted during one of the reinstallation attempts, then the files are no longer going to be visible. During one of the reinstallation attempts, if the pool drives weren't recognized as pool drives from the original installation and if you added them to the pool like a new installation, then they were formatted and no files from the previous installation will be visible no matter which computer you put them in. If this is the case, and the drives were reformatted, all is probably not lost yet. Pull the drives from the storage pool and don't write any more data to any of the pool drives so you don't overwrite the data that is probably still there. I've had pretty good luck recovering files from reformatted and repartitioned drives using a couple of free tools:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
http://trinityhome.org

[wayner]

The files should be there as long as you didn't reformat them as Jason said. THey are in a bit of a convoluted folder structure but they will be there and those that are duplicated will be on two drives.

[gplasky]

If you're looking for those files on the other drives make sure you set your view to see hidden files. Those folders are normally hidden. Make sure you can see hidden files and look for the DE folder on those seperate drives.

Gerry

[btrcp2000]

Found them on one of the drives, so now they are being backed up elsewhere. The other two drives are just totally empty, no directories hidden or not. I had folder dupe activated on several shares, but it looks like it never happened. Either that, or it really did reformat them on a reinstall, which would defeat the entire purpose of a reinstall as Microsoft calls it. Less and less impressed with WHS by the minute here.

Also, my efforts at freezing the drive to recover the sage directory appear to have been for nothing, as the two separate copies I made of it have nothing in them, just empty folders, even with "show hidden" checked.

[gplasky]

Well it is unfortunate but you had a drive die. There is no guarantee no matter what method you use you could ever recover your info from your system drive.

As to WHS and reinstallation, WHS will never just reformat your drives without telling you. You will always get a dialog about finding new drives and do you want to bring them into the pool. And it will warn you that it will reformat them. If unsure of the process then you can always keep the drives disconnected until after the new install of the drive, connect the drives later and boot to DVD to do a recovery.

Here is one of the better article that walks thru a recovery and some points that are needed for a successful recovery.
WHS Recovery


Another process not for the shy on how to clone your system OS
How to successfully clone and upgrade a WHS system drive
Not really to be used to backup the system but to use to upgrade or replace a drive before failure.

Gerry

[Fuzzy]

If I were to go to WHS (which I'm really not that inclined to do) I think I'd definately look at a hardware port multiplier with RAID 1 built in, and run the system drive on that. Even if it was run on a pair of CF cards or something.

Originally Posted by Olias

Attached is a picture of what I call "PC ala mode".

Is that some sort of cheat mode from the middle east?