183 replies to this topic

[Foden]

I modified the instructions as previously they did not indicate how long you should hold in the reset button and when to release it

• Run the Server recovery CD on a PC and follow the instructions with regards to removing software (IGNORE THE REST FOR NOW)
• Turn off the Acer, hold power button for 4 seconds
• Using a paper-clip, or similar, push in the recovery button on the back of the unit and KEEP it pressed in WHILST you turn on the unit AND keep it pressed in until step 6
• If you have done this correctly the i will flash RED on the front of the unit
• WAIT patiently until you see the network icon, on the front of the unit, flash BLUE (this can take several minutes - yes minutes!!)
• Once the network icon flashes BLUE then, and only then, can you stop pressing the reset button with the paperclip
• Now you can press the NEXT button on the Server Recovery Software and it WILL find the server very quickly
• Follow the instructions now from the Server Recovery Software. It DOES take a long time to recover (best part of 1 hour on a Gigabit network). Shame they didn’t put the 3Gb image on the 1Tb drive to save time!!!

Hope this is clearer and helps

[jeffbourassa]

I modified the instructions as previously they did not indicate how long you should hold in the reset button and when to release it

• Run the Server recovery CD on a PC and follow the instructions with regards to removing software (IGNORE THE REST FOR NOW)
• Turn off the Acer, hold power button for 4 seconds
• Using a paper-clip, or similar, push in the recovery button on the back of the unit and KEEP it pressed in WHILST you turn on the unit AND keep it pressed in until step 6
• If you have done this correctly the i will flash RED on the front of the unit
• WAIT patiently until you see the network icon, on the front of the unit, flash BLUE (this can take several minutes - yes minutes!!)
• Once the network icon flashes BLUE then, and only then, can you stop pressing the reset button with the paperclip
• Now you can press the NEXT button on the Server Recovery Software and it WILL find the server very quickly
• Follow the instructions now from the Server Recovery Software. It DOES take a long time to recover (best part of 1 hour on a Gigabit network). Shame they didn’t put the 3Gb image on the 1Tb drive to save time!!!

Hope this is clearer and helps

I was able to get the 340 into the server recovery mode. Following the recovery about an hour, the 340 restarted - sat idle for a while, nothing really going on. So I powered off the 340 and rebooted. Now I have a solid red "i" icon and 2 red light next to drives 2 and 3 from the bottom up (drive 1 on the bottom) - as I was unable to access the server previously. And now it appears dead... is there any hope for me to be able to recover any files from the server at this point.

Is there a way to pull a drive, connect to another working PC and recover any files? I am hoping to get my files off the server disks - then I will do a full re-install (maybe) - not sure I trust this thing.

I am going to try the server recovery again, however this seems perhaps hopeless?



Jeff

[Burnman]

I was able to get the 340 into the server recovery mode. Following the recovery about an hour, the 340 restarted - sat idle for a while, nothing really going on. So I powered off the 340 and rebooted. Now I have a solid red "i" icon and 2 red light next to drives 2 and 3 from the bottom up (drive 1 on the bottom) - as I was unable to access the server previously. And now it appears dead... is there any hope for me to be able to recover any files from the server at this point.

Is there a way to pull a drive, connect to another working PC and recover any files? I am hoping to get my files off the server disks - then I will do a full re-install (maybe) - not sure I trust this thing.

I am going to try the server recovery again, however this seems perhaps hopeless?



Jeff

Connecting the drives to another pc won't achieve anything, you can't read them. Doing a recovery is the only way. You should be able to do it and recover your files. I've done it a number of times without any problems. When you do the recovery and it asks if you want to download the latest files select NO. This can cause problems. Even HP recommends this on their server recovery. Once recovered you can go in and select to update the server and you should be good to go. I've had failures when I've selected Yes to download updates during a recovery. Hope this helps and you can get back online.

[Alodar]

Connecting the drives to another pc won't achieve anything, you can't read them.  Doing a recovery is the only way.

Umm, you sure about that?  WHS ver. 1 just uses plain old NTFS.  You pull any data drive out of the system and hook it up to a PC that can read NTFS formatted drives and you can see and copy off the files.  Now Vail is another story entirely.  That's one of the biggest gripes about Vail now, it's inability due to the Drive Extender ver. 2 that precludes accessing the data on the drives from any non-Vail system. 

[Foden]

Umm, you sure about that?  WHS ver. 1 just uses plain old NTFS.  You pull any data drive out of the system and hook it up to a PC that can read NTFS formatted drives and you can see and copy off the files.  Now Vail is another story entirely.  That's one of the biggest gripes about Vail now, it's inability due to the Drive Extender ver. 2 that precludes accessing the data on the drives from any non-Vail system. 

I have had a couple of situations, all my own doing, where I have toasted my WHS and have had to restore my server. Im pretty sure all I lost where the user accounts but not any data. Yes current version of WHS uses NTFS so you 'should' be able to read whats on the drives if you hook them up to any PC. Is it possible that the drives really have died?

[cbecker]

I modified the instructions as previously they did not indicate how long you should hold in the reset button and when to release it

• Run the Server recovery CD on a PC and follow the instructions with regards to removing software (IGNORE THE REST FOR NOW)
• Turn off the Acer, hold power button for 4 seconds
• Using a paper-clip, or similar, push in the recovery button on the back of the unit and KEEP it pressed in WHILST you turn on the unit AND keep it pressed in until step 6
• If you have done this correctly the i will flash RED on the front of the unit
• WAIT patiently until you see the network icon, on the front of the unit, flash BLUE (this can take several minutes - yes minutes!!)
• Once the network icon flashes BLUE then, and only then, can you stop pressing the reset button with the paperclip
• Now you can press the NEXT button on the Server Recovery Software and it WILL find the server very quickly
• Follow the instructions now from the Server Recovery Software. It DOES take a long time to recover (best part of 1 hour on a Gigabit network). Shame they didn’t put the 3Gb image on the 1Tb drive to save time!!!

Hope this is clearer and helps

Thank you for this.

For others out there, here are a few things to consider while recovering your H340, should you go this route.

Note in this scenario I had installed some software that caused the OS to not boot properly, so I did a recovery for the first time and just wanted to share the experience in more detail:

- "Minutes", is no exageration. I had to hold the paperclip in place for what felt like 8 minutes (literally). Just wait for that network light, folks.
- Once the server is found (after step 7), the DVD contents are downloaded to the whs and then installed on the server. It does take close to an hour for the whole process to complete end-to-end, and it's not fully automated, so stick around. Sometimes when I clicked <next> in the restoration gui, the connection got "lost" and the server wasn't found or "wasn't ready" at that point during the install, so if you get an error, wait a minute or two, press <back> and <next> again to re-connect. It should resume fine. I noticed the network connection got lost once or twice during the install -- probably because it was installing/updating the NIC drivers at that point.
- My whs was running SP3 when I lost it. After I did the recovery, the user accounts were "lost" from the console gui, but the data was all there, and re-adding the same user wasn't an issue. (Note that the selection is greyed out, but selected nonetheless). No need to create new users or move/rename their stuff.
- Everything in D:\shares seems to be all there, so just the OS (C:\) drive seems to be affected, and the settings for the WHS console (and any WHS apps) are reset to defaults.
- My daily backup history for all three systems all seemed to be recovered, too, which was a surprise I wasn't expecting.
- My stock CD recovered to SP1 (no surprise), so be prepared to re-patch your system fully and re-install the connector s/w on all your hosts.
- I have a total of 4 drives in the WHS, with duplication turned on for all my shares. Before the restore process I pulled one of the drives out and put it into a USB enclosure and connected it to a PC to see what I could read. The drive showed up as ~90% full, but Windows 7 couldn't see a file structure on the drive. In other words, it doesn't look like the drives are readable individually. (What I expected, but wanted to share).

I can't stress enough the importance of backing up your critical data (and when Vail comes out, the OS) to an external USB drive just in case. Concurrent dual drive failures do happen, as do accidental deletions of files (that get replicated to your duplicated drive).

[Alodar]

Glad it worked for you.  I haven't been so fortunate.  Never had an issue with "server not found" but on restore I always get blocked by the "NetworkError" error, and on factory reset by the "Server Failed to Initialize" error.  Although with the latter, I think it might be that I have an add-in esata card so the box isn't in a factory default hardware state for Factory Reset to work.  Haven't had the opportunity to pull the card and try again yet.  Did you ever run into the "NetworkError" issue?

[orphos]

In my best English.


Right from the beginning, the Acer restore button never worked for me. So I recently checked if there was software installed on the internal USB.
It was empty. So, I found someone who provide me an image of the internal flash and everything works fine for me now.
Perhaps there are more Acers shipped without software on the internal USB.

[Alodar]

Just an update on my situation, I recently changed routers from a Netgear back to an old Sonicwall, and although the configuration is the same, with the Sonicwall I am able to perform both Server Restore and Factory Reset.  Not sure what in my Netgear was blocking this and causing the "NetworkError" error, but something certainly was.

[Dave Marchant (WGS)]

I am starting to believe that some of these 'new generation' routers are making things difficult with their implementation of DHCP. I found my network very 'hit and miss' when I switched to a new Linksys WAG320N and in the end the cause seemed to be a domain suffix it was applying to DHCP clients. As this didn't match the IP settings on WHS (and my networked printer), the PC's were having difficulties finding things.

I moved DHCP onto WHS and all has been well again.

[Austin Huntzinger]

i have had the same problems with my router. i had a couple extra ones and tried the first one out and i havent recieved any errors restore ing my server from that point on.

[p.zijlstra]

I modified the instructions as previously they did not indicate how long you should hold in the reset button and when to release it

• Run the Server recovery CD on a PC and follow the instructions with regards to removing software (IGNORE THE REST FOR NOW)
• Turn off the Acer, hold power button for 4 seconds
• Using a paper-clip, or similar, push in the recovery button on the back of the unit and KEEP it pressed in WHILST you turn on the unit AND keep it pressed in until step 6
• If you have done this correctly the i will flash RED on the front of the unit
• WAIT patiently until you see the network icon, on the front of the unit, flash BLUE (this can take several minutes - yes minutes!!)
• Once the network icon flashes BLUE then, and only then, can you stop pressing the reset button with the paperclip
• Now you can press the NEXT button on the Server Recovery Software and it WILL find the server very quickly
• Follow the instructions now from the Server Recovery Software. It DOES take a long time to recover (best part of 1 hour on a Gigabit network). Shame they didn’t put the 3Gb image on the 1Tb drive to save time!!!

Hope this is clearer and helps

I wish this would have worked for me..... though it was very clear
After 15 minutes of pushing the reset button I gave up. Nothing happened. The red i keeps flashing, no network connection.
I tried to call ACER helpdesk, they would return my call by a specialist....They didn't.

I have 3 1TB disks that came with the H340 and I added 1 Barracuda 1 TB extra disk. + 1 IOMEGA USB disk 1TB....

The problem started with a never stopping calculating diskspace. Spontaniously 3 disks were not added anymore. Ik couldn't add them again (grey) The disks could not be monitored on health
But I could see all data. I could copy/use them etc. I still cann when its not in recoverystatus.

But: in order to recover I had the clientsoftware etc removed from the 1st pc.
Now I don' t dare to reinstall it because I 'm afraid to lose the data on the disks. What should I do? Recovery won' t work, wil reinstall do..?

After typing this I restarted the WHS, but now its seems dead.... No signs of operating disks( no lights there, but netwokr is flahing blue, HD is then on, then of, i is blinking blue)

Another 10 minutes later the HD light came up red and then blue. Yes i have my data, but still no software recovery....

Pete

[kkenn]

I now have 3 1Tb drives including the one that contains my system. (system at 2%, others at 75%) I want to replace the system drive with a smaller drive then add the 1Tb system drive to the storage pool. So do I just replace the system drive then run the server recovery disc per the OP's instructions. Do I leave the other 2 drives in? I have all data backed up to an external.

[Dickster]

In my best English.


Right from the beginning, the Acer restore button never worked for me. So I recently checked if there was software installed on the internal USB.
It was empty. So, I found someone who provide me an image of the internal flash and everything works fine for me now.
Perhaps there are more Acers shipped without software on the internal USB.

I think i have the same problem. The server is nout found during the recovery proces.

How can i see if there is software installed on the internal USB?

[orphos]

I think i have the same problem. The server is nout found during the recovery proces.

How can i see if there is software installed on the internal USB?

With a bootable USB-key with Acronis True Image 2010.

[jerryt]

How can i see if there is software installed on the internal USB?

With the video cable installed on the motherboard, after booting with the jumper installed (S3 I believe), you will be able to see the internal flash drive. PM me if you need a fresh copy of it's contains.

[Dickster]

With a bootable USB-key with Acronis True Image 2010.

With the video cable installed on the motherboard, after booting with the jumper installed (S3 I believe), you will be able to see the internal flash drive. PM me if you need a fresh copy of it's contains.

Thanks for your advice. It's a brand new devide, which is already replaced once (for another with the same problem). As the device is new and within warranty I will make this the problem of the reseller/Acer.

I tried the procedure form the manual, paperclip untill readlight flashes and keep holding paperclip. Waited over 10 minutes with each option without succes.
Network light does not flash and no lights are burning on NIC, so no network activity.

Wat will hapen if i put the contents on an usb drive. Will it boot from the USB drive?
If so, could someone please provide me with the contents.

[jerryt]

Thanks for your advice. It's a brand new devide, which is already replaced once (for another with the same problem). As the device is new and within warranty I will make this the problem of the reseller/Acer.

I tried the procedure form the manual, paperclip untill readlight flashes and keep holding paperclip. Waited over 10 minutes with each option without succes.
Network light does not flash and no lights are burning on NIC, so no network activity.

Wat will hapen if i put the contents on an usb drive. Will it boot from the USB drive?
If so, could someone please provide me with the contents.

Link to flash drive image sent by PM

[Dickster]

A special thanks to orphos and jerryt for providing the image.

Recovered the image to USB drive. Without any hardware changes the restore procedure started form the USB drive and I was able to recover.

[mva]

Thanks for your advice. It's a brand new devide, which is already replaced once (for another with the same problem). As the device is new and within warranty I will make this the problem of the reseller/Acer.

I tried the procedure form the manual, paperclip untill readlight flashes and keep holding paperclip. Waited over 10 minutes with each option without succes.
Network light does not flash and no lights are burning on NIC, so no network activity.

Wat will hapen if i put the contents on an usb drive. Will it boot from the USB drive?
If so, could someone please provide me with the contents.

In my best English.

I've the same problem that Dickster, and there is no light in network connection. Two questions:

1.- It's necessary a vga card in the acer h340 to make the boot from the usb drive?
2.- Please, i'm desperate, Could anyone provide me the contents of the usb drive?

My server doesn't works anyway, and i have past a lot of time treating of boot the system again, and i can't do it.

Thank you