Help! Boot Drive on WHS 2011 Died

[enigma54]

I've been using DrivePool on a WHS 2011 machine with four 2 TB hard drives for over 5 years without any problems. Today, the server wouldn't boot up because it couldn't detect the boot drive (2 TB Hitachi drive, Oct-2011 date of manufacture). I went into BIOS and the boot drive was not detected there.  I tried swapping SATA cables and connecting the boot drive to another computer, a Windows 7 build, but the hard drive does not show up in BIOS.

 

So is it safe to assume the hard drive is dead?  Unfortunately, I have no backup of this drive and I was not using file duplication in DrivePool.  So even if I do a fresh install of WHS 2011 and DrivePool, is my entire data across the 4 hard drives corrupted?  What's my best course of action now?

 

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions!  This really is the nightmare scenario for me and I really should've had a backup of the boot drive.

[Umfriend]

No, your data is fine. I am assuming that the died OS HDD was not part of the Pool in any way BTW, otherwise the data there may be lost.But any an all data that resided on the other three are still there and very reasily recoverable.

 

First, you could connect the other 3 2TB HDDs to another computer, set Windows Explorer to show hidden folders and below the poolpart.xxxx. folders you will find your data. DP stores files as regular NTFS so no worries.

 

Further advise:

1. Buy a new HDD

2. Disconnect all other HDDs

3. Insert new HDD in Server

4. Install WHS2011

5. Install DrivePool

6. Turn off Server

7. Connect disconnected HDDs

8. Reboot

 

DrivePool should recognise the pool, remeasure/rebalance and all should be well.

 

Step 9: MAKE BACKUPS! WHS2011 Server Backup works great and if you get, say, an Icy Dock hot swap bay for one HDD, slam an 8TB Archive HDD in there and back the Sever up once a day. Buy another 8TH HDD and swap them weekly, keep one copy offsite.

[enigma54]

No, your data is fine. I am assuming that the died OS HDD was not part of the Pool in any way BTW, otherwise the data there may be lost.But any an all data that resided on the other three are still there and very reasily recoverable.

 

First, you could connect the other 3 2TB HDDs to another computer, set Windows Explorer to show hidden folders and below the poolpart.xxxx. folders you will find your data. DP stores files as regular NTFS so no worries.

 

Further advise:

1. Buy a new HDD

2. Disconnect all other HDDs

3. Insert new HDD in Server

4. Install WHS2011

5. Install DrivePool

6. Turn off Server

7. Connect disconnected HDDs

8. Reboot

 

DrivePool should recognise the pool, remeasure/rebalance and all should be well.

 

Step 9: MAKE BACKUPS! WHS2011 Server Backup works great and if you get, say, an Icy Dock hot swap bay for one HDD, slam an 8TB Archive HDD in there and back the Sever up once a day. Buy another 8TH HDD and swap them weekly, keep one copy offsite.

Thanks for the step-by-step guide! Unfortunately, I think the OS HDD was part of the pool. I don't remember exactly because I set this up over 5 years ago, but at the very least, I seem to remember partitioning the OSS drive into a 60Meg boot partition and put the second partition into the drive pool. In hindsight, that was pretty dumb. So in this scenario, what happens to the data on the other drives? Corrupted?

[Umfriend]

No, the data that was stored on the other HDDs will still be there, uncorrupted. DP stores files in normal NTFS format. Single files are always stored on one HDD in their entirety. All you may have lost are the files that ended up on the OS+DP HDD. You can easily find them, assuming these HDDs have not failed of course, but attaching them to a working PC, explore hidden folders and dive into the hidden poolpart folders.

 

And perhaps some sort of data recovery can be applied to that HDD as well.

 

Your hindsight is not 20/20 I am afraid. Even if you had not included that partition in the Pool, another HDD might have failed and you'd have had the same issue. Duplication and Scanner would have given some protection but #9 really is key.

[enigma54]

No, the data that was stored on the other HDDs will still be there, uncorrupted. DP stores files in normal NTFS format. Single files are always stored on one HDD in their entirety. All you may have lost are the files that ended up on the OS+DP HDD. You can easily find them, assuming these HDDs have not failed of course, but attaching them to a working PC, explore hidden folders and dive into the hidden poolpart folders.

 

And perhaps some sort of data recovery can be applied to that HDD as well.

 

Your hindsight is not 20/20 I am afraid. Even if you had not included that partition in the Pool, another HDD might have failed and you'd have had the same issue. Duplication and Scanner would have given some protection but #9 really is key.

OK thanks again for the reply. So working on the assumption that the OS HDD is dead, I'm planning to buy a replacement HDD, likely a SSD this time (recommend a particular brand?) and I'll use this solely for the OS and not as part of the pool. I'll then follow your steps to re-install WHS 2011 and DrivePool and then reconnect all the HDD's. I'll also see about looking for a backup solution for the server itself.

 

I'll try and find a service that can perhaps recover the data, especially on the partition that was part of the pool. Assuming I can recover this data, would I simply be able to copy all the DP files to a new HDD and DrivePool will recognize the recovered data as part of the pool?

[Umfriend]

Ah, here it gets a bit tricky. Once you reconnect the remaining HDDs in step 7/8, DP should recognise the Pool but it will also, I am pretty sure, notice that one HDD is missing. This one you have to remove via the UI (basically telling DP it will never get that HDD back).

 

Assuming some files will be restored somehow, I would copy them from whatever device you get them on to the Pool (so to the drive letter that is your Pool). If you also have another HDD to use in the Pool I would simply just add it to the Pool via the UI. Basically, adding HDDs and adding the files are two different things (at least how I would do this).

 

I use Samsung HDDs, not EVOs, but I guess many brands are just fine.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

First, I'm sorry to hear about the system drive failure, as that is never a pleasant experience. 

 

Umfriend is correct here, the data should be intact.  Once you've reinstalled the system and installed StableBit Drivepool, it will automatically detect the pooled drive and rebuild the pool with the available drives (and files). 

 

But no, it won't recognize the missing disk on the new system, as this is stored locally (and something that will be changing in the near future). So it only recognizes the connected drives. 

 

That said, if the data was NOT duplicated, and was on the system drive, then yes, you're SOL for the contents on that drive. 

 

 

 

OK thanks again for the reply. So working on the assumption that the OS HDD is dead, I'm planning to buy a replacement HDD, likely a SSD this time (recommend a particular brand?) and I'll use this solely for the OS and not as part of the pool. I'll then follow your steps to re-install WHS 2011 and DrivePool and then reconnect all the HDD's. I'll also see about looking for a backup solution for the server itself.

I'll try and find a service that can perhaps recover the data, especially on the partition that was part of the pool. Assuming I can recover this data, would I simply be able to copy all the DP files to a new HDD and DrivePool will recognize the recovered data as part of the pool?

 

Any decent SSD is good for the system drive. Samsungs are popular. 

 

As for a service that can recover data, it depends on how they're able to recover it.  If they can recover the entire "image" of the drive, that's the best option. Otherwise, if they can get the raw files, you'll need to re-organize everything.