WHS server reinstall

[wayner]

I am having some issues with my WHS box and I want to perform a server reinstall. I had to do this about a year ago and I never got the reinstall option.

Any advice on exactly how to do this? When you boot up off of the install disc should you have all of your old data drives connected? If so doesn't WHS want to wipe everything off of all existing drives? If not then when do you connect the data drives.

[ldw58]

I had to go through this about four months ago and found this guide to be very helpful:

http://usingwindowshomeserver.com/20...s-home-server/

Good luck!

The bottom line is that it rebuilds the tombstones of the data volume by having the data drives connected so, with great nervousness, I kept the data drives connected and let it completely replace the system volume HDD (I had all my data duplicated prior to this because otherwise I might've lost something because the data portion of the system volume HDD was rebuilt and overwritten).

It worked out fine and I ended up having a few false starts and went through the process about three times (I mistakenly believed that, upon restore, I could use an Acronis-like tool to lay down my original hard drive image on a new install).

My system volume HDD was failing which was why I had to re-install.

[wayner]

I appeared to have system volume problems before as well and that's why I did yhe reinstall a yaer ago. Six months I started experiencing other problems, such as a aslow response crom Sage so I decided to use another PC rather than WHS as a Sage server and I will just use WHS to backup my PCs and to backup some of the data on my Sage server.

[Chriscic]

http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.p...__1#entry50307

You might find this thread useful. When I reinstalled I found the menu options and warnings involved stupid and misleading, but I was able to reinstall just fine with "system restore" and some sweat that all my stuff was going to get wiped out.

I never got a straight "reinstall option."

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.p...__1#entry50307

You might find this thread useful. When I reinstalled I found the menu options and warnings involved stupid and misleading, but I was able to reinstall just fine with "system restore" and some sweat that all my stuff was going to get wiped out.

I never got a straight "reinstall option."

But you should. If today on an operational WHS you boot to the install DVD you should have that reinstall option available. If not, something else is wrong. You need to make sure prior to the install screen option that you loaded any additional storage drivers. If your mb has manufacturer specific drivers you load during a normal Windows OS install then you need to load them now whether the screen shows those drives or not.

Gerry

[wayner]

One of the things i plan to do is to reinstall my system drive as I am worried that this drive may be a bit wonky and causing problems. Can I just put in a new drive in place of the system drive, while leaving my 4-5 data drives in place and then reboot from the install DVD? I have lots of free space - can I be sure that ere will be no data on the data portion of the system drive? What I mean is that the system drive is 500GB and there is well over 500GB free in the data volume.

[gplasky]

I think the last time I replaced the OS drive I disconnected all of my other drives in the pool. Then I just installed WHS with the single drive in the system. After I was completey done with all the updates and powerpacks I shutdown the machine and reconnected all the pool drives. When it came back up it recognized the drives as being in a pool but took forever to rebuild the tombstones from the existing pool. (4+ hours for 3+TB) Doing it this way also helped to ensure nothing happened to the pool drives during the original WHS install.

Gerry

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by gplasky

But you should. If today on an operational WHS you boot to the install DVD you should have that reinstall option available. If not, something else is wrong. You need to make sure prior to the install screen option that you loaded any additional storage drivers. If your mb has manufacturer specific drivers you load during a normal Windows OS install then you need to load them now whether the screen shows those drives or not.

Gerry

Yea, well, whatever was wrong for me was wrong for a lot of people, because there have been a lot of complaints about that exact issue.