MediaSmart Server Recovery Failure

Here we go, my first blog. So let me get right to the point. About 2 weeks ago I started loosing my primary hard drive on my HP MedeaSmart Windows Home Server. First I started getting worrying messages from the WHS console, I then proceeded to check the even log on the server itself and sure enough some really nasty event IDs showed up, which after googling, proved to to be sure signs of impending hard drive melting doom.

I researched my recovery options and it seems that the HP server had a built in facility to do complete non-destructive recovery from such a scenario. All I needed was a new hard drive, a paper clip and another compute with a cd drive. Sounded simple enough.

So I proceeded to pulled the old system drive and replace it with a new drive. I started the server recovery CD from another system on the network, followed the instructions given to me, got out that trusty paper clip and hit the hidden server recovery button on the front of the system just at the right time, and then... nothing! The server recovery wizard went through it's finding your home server bit for about 2 minutes and then proceeded to tell me that it couldn't find anything and suggested that I turn off my firewall. Clearly, that was not the issue.

So, 6 hours later...

After going through multiple routers, multiple ethernet cables, but still the original paper clip, I came to the conclusion that there must be something seriously wrong with the server's BIOS, or whatever process it uses for server recovery. Connecting the server to a router and booting into this "safe recovery environment" didn't produce a single blip on the router's lights. I assumed the worst and was prepared to call HP for a replacement. It was really late at night, so I saved that task for the next day.

However, come next day, relentless as I am, I continued my search for the possible cause of this recovery mode malfunction.

A few hours later...

I come across this post on some obscure forum, which I've lost since, with another person having a similar experience with server recovery. Someone had replied to them to make sure that the server only sees one OS, and that it had trouble booting up with a milti-boot system and that they should unplug any external USB hard drives not part of the storage pool.

Now I don't have a multi-boot system, and why you would want to multi-boot when you're doing server recovery is completely beyond me. But I DO have an external USB hard drive that was not part of the storage pool. Although, how the server knows if a hard drive is part of the storage pool or not at this early stage in booting, is also completely beyond me. But nevertheless, this was one thing I hadn't tried. So I proceed to unplug my single USB hard drive and fire up the wizard again, get out that trusty parer clip one more time, and sure enough, after 2 minutes of searching the wizard had reported that it found my home server. Hooray!

Lesson learned.

I wish they had mentioned somewhere that server recovery DOES NOT WORK WITH EXTERNAL USB HARD DRIVES PLUGGED IN.

But little did I know, my problems had only started. Because at this point, I hadn't actually lost any data yet.