HP MediaSmart Server – Performing a Server Recovery

By on November 17, 2007 in Hardware, Windows Home Server

c012571631 150x150 HP MediaSmart Server Performing a Server Recovery

In the past couple of weeks, quite a few people have asked about the procedure for performing a server recovery of the HP MediaSmart Server – given the server is headless (i.e. no DVD drive, monitor ports, keyboard and mouse ports). Last week, I explained that the procedure was to insert HP’s Server Recovery disk into one of your home computers attached to the network, and place the server into a recovery state, at which point, it will reinstall across the network.

A full guide has now been published on recovering both home computers and the home server on HP’s website – if you’re interested in how this is done (and, like the Tranquil PC’s server recovery procedure, it’s pretty clever stuff) then take a look.

More Info: hp.com


Enjoyed this post? Share it.

If you enjoyed reading this post, then why not share it with your friends and followers?

About Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh is the founding editor and owner of We Got Served. Since February 2007, the site has provided detailed coverage and analysis of the emerging home server category, and has subsequently grown into a trusted outlet for digital home news and reviews.
View all posts by Terry Walsh →

Sign Up for WGS Daily News

If you don't want to miss out on the latest news from We Got Served, why not subscribe to our daily digest? You'll get the day's headlines and a short summary of each news item delivered straight to your inbox each morning.

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Pingback: Homeserver Blog » Blog Archive » HP MediaSmart Recovery

  • GaMeR™

    Looks pretty simple to me. Even my daddy would be able to recover his server that way!

    I’m going to build my own, but he’s gonna buy the HP server.

  • Andrew

    Can you PLEASE put this on a watt meter and let the world know how many watts it uses while running……..

  • http://www.mediasmartserver.net Alex

    I’ve done just that, got watt meter results on my site here:
    http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=60

  • Terry Walsh

    Looks like it performed a clean install from the HP Recovery Image, rather than a server reinstall which isn’t ideal – I’m doing a recovery test tonight on our EX475 as the final part of our MediaSmart Review, so we’ll see if the same thing happens…

  • LibbyLoo

    Decided to perform a Server Recovery on my HP MediaSmart EX470 just to satisfy my desire to know what would happen to my data in the event of ever having to perform this. The manual says “Server Recovery attempts to recover all data and restore the folders. However, because of the state of the system prior to the recovery, not all data may be able to be recovered or integrated into the folder structure.” I set out to do the restore with about 100GB of backups, photos, music, private folders and the like on the MediaSmart server. None of the data was critical in the event I lost it. The server restore was very easy. Only took about 30-40 minutes and requires a paper clip, a wired LAN connection, and a computer with a DVD drive to run the Server Recovery Disc. When I finally got the Home Console back up and running I expected that I would have to restore all my settings and my users, and I expected that my shared folders would still contain my data. No such luck. All the data was wiped out. No photos, no music, nothing! The only folder that had data was the Software folder and it was the original files that shipped with the MediaSmart server. This is not comforting. I wonder if I need 2 drives and Folder Duplication to be able to do a restore without file loss? Any ideas what I did wrong?

  • Terry Walsh

    Hi

    I ran an Server Recovery procedure last night successfully on the EX475. There were two recovery options, Server Recovery and Factory Reset – the first keeps your data intact, but requires you to set up your users accounts again, and the second wipes the server clean.

    From the sounds of it, you may have selected the second option by mistake?

    Terry

  • Terry Walsh

    Hi LibbyLoo

    Well, you should certainly uninstall the Connector software and HP Update before running the recovery, but don’t reinstall the Connector software until after the Server Recovery is complete. Good luck and let me know how you get on!

    Terry

  • LibbyLoo

    Thanks Terry. I don’t think I used the Factory Reset, but anything is possible and I didn’t have my glasses on at the time :-) I am going to run a test once again to see what happens. One thing I did that may be wrong was uninstall and then reinstall the Home Server Connect software on all 5 of my connected Notebooks and PC’s. I thought that was the proper way to proceed. This time I will leave the software installed and see if that helps. Certainly will be easier!

  • http://www.mediasmartserver.net Alex

    Hi LibbyLoo,

    It sounds like you performed a Factory Reset. The Server Recovery process only lays down a fresh C:\ partition, which should have left all your data in the shares (on the D:\ partition) safely in place. You do not need duplication for this to work. Do let us know if you try it again!

    Thanks,
    Alex

  • Magoo

    I got my EX475 server and noticed it already had a server name: QE7 and password hint was “Q”. I hope this wasn’t Q for quality control. Took me a few attempts with the paper clip to reset. Doing a full reset now to factory.

    Should I complain to HP for sending me a already configured home server?

    Thanks!

  • Robert

    Does anyone know what happens in the following scenario: 2 disk drives both in the same pool with duplication of critical folders turned on. The primary drive gets toasted, has to be replaced. Will the duplicated folder data on drive that is still alive be salvaged? Just talked to an HP tech and he indicated no, that the duplication feature was just intended to fix corruption. I hope he was mistaken. Would also like to know what happens when a non-primary drive in a pool gets toasted. How does that affect the data. The data integrity features of this system appear much less than I expected for a device of its cost. Anybody see something I am missing?

  • Tim Lang

    Robert,

    Assuming the drive the failed was not the system/OS drive, WHS would promote the secondary (duplicated) copies of all your folders to primary. If the failed drive was also the OS drive and you have to do a full server recovery, I am not sure if it would detect the pre-existing data on the secondary drive…. Personally, I would yank the secondary (good) drive with your duplicated folder data and connect it to another computer to manually copy your files before you did the server restore.

  • Mark

    I thought if you yank a drive without performing the actual “Remove Drive” step, that you somehow end up with a bunged up drive – i.e., the data can’t be recovered from the “yanked” drive.

    Co-incidentally, I have started reading these forums because my HP MediaSmart EX470 is reporting that the main system/os drive is “unhealthy” which is starting to worry me. I have popped a second drive in and have all of my data on replicated to that drive.

    But this statement from HP also has me worried:
    “Server Recovery attempts to recover all data and restore the folders. However, because of the state of the system prior to the recovery, not all data may be able to be recovered or integrated into the folder structure. ”

    I am using my MediaServer as a file server… i.e., it contains all my data. I keep no data on the personal computers anymore. I even point my “My Documents” folder at a share I have set up on the server.

    Is this not the intended use? i.e., should I still be using my computer as the primary data holder, and only using the WHS as a backup thing, and for putting COPIES of files on it for sharing?

  • Sean

    Here is a fun one for you. Just setup my EX475 a few nights ago on my laptop runs great, so I decide to set it up on my desktop. Well the server says my PC password and its password dont match so i need to change one. Using HP’s software that popped up you are able to do so. I think on no problem. Yeah right I am typing this on my other computer. The HP changed it to an unknown password. I verified that i had the right password by logging into the webshare with that account and no problem. HP’s final answer was sorry about your luck we have no clue what happenened and our only level of support is tier 1. Now i try to log back in again on the webshare using the password i used 10 minutes prior and nothing the thing seems to be forgetting passwords…..In my mind it is a giant paper weight. Hope you all have better luck with yours

  • Jeremy Higginson

    I have just experienced a primary disk failure (nasty scratching noises inside the drive case) so I’m going to have to find another drive and rebuild the operating system. As I have a second disk with Folder Duplication enabled, I assumed I could somehow (though the steps aren’t clearly stated anywhere) re-copy the data from the duplicate drive back onto the primary drive when it is rebuilt. But the comments above suggest that the odds of this working are evens at best. The recommendation seems to be that I should find an external drive enclosure, put my secondary disk in it, attach it to a spare PC which has a capacious hard drive and copy the contents across, but this assumes that the drive is just formatted as a standard NTFS drive. Is that correct, or does some encryption barrier stand between me and success?

  • RoyChen

    When I perform a Factory Reset, it always fail, why? it reports that part write error!

  • http://www.qbranch.se Jonas Nordström

    @RoyChen – I needed to copy the entire Recovery CD onto Harddrive, running the WHSRecovery from there, before I got the recovery to stop complaining about the problem writing the “Partition Data”.
    A visible sign of this is that the EULA-window is empty when running directly from CD…i.e. nothing to AGREE to. After copying the content, the text appears and the Recovery works fine.

  • Pingback: Home Server Hub | How To: Set Up and Configure a Hardware-Based Firewall Parts 2 & 3

  • http://www.microscum.co.uk GerryH

    Hi,
    I have had a MediSmart EX475 for about 18 months, carried a recovery once without any issues. NOW I have a failed machine that I can’t connect to… the recovery process goes fine upto and including the set server into recovery mode (I can see an IP address assigned to my homeserver in the routers logs). all the disks appaear OK and can be read on a separate PC. Even the boot disk is OK and can be booted on a separate machine… any ideas or do I scrap it and nbuy onaother home server from another manufacturer? Great site btw!