Windows Home Server big gotcha
Category WHS restore
I came back from Las Vegas on Tuesday to discover there had been a major storm with power outages. My main machine looked ok, but my start bar and desktop icons had all been changed, and it was acting like I had a new machine with apps not installed. Vista was displaying some error message about using a temporary profile, and I could investigate further. I investigated futher and the suggested solution was to edit the registry and delete this temporary profile. Well I did this, and guess what it didn't fix anything, I was left with a machine that still had all my data, but all the buttons to launch the apps etc. weren't there.
No problem I thought, as I make a daily backup on the Windows Home Server, so I decided I would just restore my macine to the backup from the day before the powercut. Easy, put in the Windows Home Server Restore CD, boot the machine, uh oh, the Windows Restore CD doesn't recognize my Network adapter so it can't get to the home server, as Skooby Doo would say, Wuh Woh. OK boot back into temporary profile, do some searching. A ha, I need to copy of a folder from the Windows Home Server (WHS) that contains the drivers to a USB drive, so that the WHS restore CD can load them.
OK copied the drivers folder, reboot CD, tell it to get drivers from USB, Wuh Woh, still no luck, no drivers discovered for the network card. Reboot, more searching, a ha, I am using Vista 64 bit, the Restore CD is Windows 32 bit, the drivers folder that WHS has created contains 64 bit drivers that wont work with Windows 32 bit, I need to get 32 windows drivers for my hardware. Download from Gateway 32 bit drivers, add to USB drive, reboot, no drivers found, arrghhh. OK find some drivers straight from NVidia not from Gateway, copy to USB drive, reboot, no drivers found argghhh, this went on like this for hours, no luck at all.
After more searching I found reference to something called X:\Files I had assumed this was referrning to a folder location, but it was actually referring to a WHS hack that is out there. Upon further investigation I discovered that there was a X:\Files restore CD, this CD has been populated with a whole bunch of drivers from driverpack and claimed to have the driver for my network card. I decided to use the Bootable USB version that X:\Files has versus using an actual CD. Popped in the USB driver, rebooted and voila, the Restore program could see my network! only about 5 hours wasted so far. OK, now I select the partitiion to restore and wait, initial estimated time for restore 28 minutes, which quickly changed to 5+ hours. After 2 hours a "Network error occured" message popped up on the screen, unable to continue I rebooted the USB drive and started again, 5 hours to go, 2 hours in "Network error occured" arrrgghh, OK I'm going to take it at face value, maybe a network error actually did occur, I unplug the Client PC and the WHS from my home router and plug them into a spare router I have for when I travel. Reboot PC, 5 hours to go, 2 hours in no error, 4 hours in no error, 6 hours in no error (yes the 5 hour estimate was wrong), 9 hours in restore complete!
Lessons learned, even if you have a restore CD and you think you have everything the instructions mentioned for restoring your PC, try it out. Make sure you have lots of tea and milk, these restores can take a long time. If a network error occured it may have actually occured, even if your network had never shown anything previously.
I came back from Las Vegas on Tuesday to discover there had been a major storm with power outages. My main machine looked ok, but my start bar and desktop icons had all been changed, and it was acting like I had a new machine with apps not installed. Vista was displaying some error message about using a temporary profile, and I could investigate further. I investigated futher and the suggested solution was to edit the registry and delete this temporary profile. Well I did this, and guess what it didn't fix anything, I was left with a machine that still had all my data, but all the buttons to launch the apps etc. weren't there.
No problem I thought, as I make a daily backup on the Windows Home Server, so I decided I would just restore my macine to the backup from the day before the powercut. Easy, put in the Windows Home Server Restore CD, boot the machine, uh oh, the Windows Restore CD doesn't recognize my Network adapter so it can't get to the home server, as Skooby Doo would say, Wuh Woh. OK boot back into temporary profile, do some searching. A ha, I need to copy of a folder from the Windows Home Server (WHS) that contains the drivers to a USB drive, so that the WHS restore CD can load them.
OK copied the drivers folder, reboot CD, tell it to get drivers from USB, Wuh Woh, still no luck, no drivers discovered for the network card. Reboot, more searching, a ha, I am using Vista 64 bit, the Restore CD is Windows 32 bit, the drivers folder that WHS has created contains 64 bit drivers that wont work with Windows 32 bit, I need to get 32 windows drivers for my hardware. Download from Gateway 32 bit drivers, add to USB drive, reboot, no drivers found, arrghhh. OK find some drivers straight from NVidia not from Gateway, copy to USB drive, reboot, no drivers found argghhh, this went on like this for hours, no luck at all.
After more searching I found reference to something called X:\Files I had assumed this was referrning to a folder location, but it was actually referring to a WHS hack that is out there. Upon further investigation I discovered that there was a X:\Files restore CD, this CD has been populated with a whole bunch of drivers from driverpack and claimed to have the driver for my network card. I decided to use the Bootable USB version that X:\Files has versus using an actual CD. Popped in the USB driver, rebooted and voila, the Restore program could see my network! only about 5 hours wasted so far. OK, now I select the partitiion to restore and wait, initial estimated time for restore 28 minutes, which quickly changed to 5+ hours. After 2 hours a "Network error occured" message popped up on the screen, unable to continue I rebooted the USB drive and started again, 5 hours to go, 2 hours in "Network error occured" arrrgghh, OK I'm going to take it at face value, maybe a network error actually did occur, I unplug the Client PC and the WHS from my home router and plug them into a spare router I have for when I travel. Reboot PC, 5 hours to go, 2 hours in no error, 4 hours in no error, 6 hours in no error (yes the 5 hour estimate was wrong), 9 hours in restore complete!
Lessons learned, even if you have a restore CD and you think you have everything the instructions mentioned for restoring your PC, try it out. Make sure you have lots of tea and milk, these restores can take a long time. If a network error occured it may have actually occured, even if your network had never shown anything previously.
| Permalink | 
Comments
It does seem that if it's Microsoft, it never seems to go "as planned".
Happy you got your goodies back.
Posted by Brett At 12:35:05 PM On 07/30/2009 | - Website - |
BTW BP's have access to a not for resale version at a good price.
Posted by Roland Reddekop At 02:19:52 PM On 07/30/2009 | - Website - |
Posted by Carl Tyler At 02:48:56 PM On 07/30/2009 | - Website - |
Foundations idb backup copies system config and data as separate objects to removeable drives. Total system restores to a standard white box require just(a) your last backup disk (I use both external eSATA and USB drives) plus (b)your bootable Foundations CD, doesn't have to be the latest version either.
Restore Process:
(1) Boot from the Foundations CD - 3 minutes
(2) Install base system - don't worry about configuring it at this time - 10 minutes.
(3) Turn off autobackup and insert the last backup disk and do a full system and data restore. Time here is based on your volume of data that needs to copy from disk to disk.
(4) reboot.
Done. If you happen to have a Domino server on this machine there's a couple extra steps to change permissions, but that's about all.
Caveat: Run the system compatibility test prior to installing and Foundations will let you know if all the components are supported with drivers. It seems to run on most systems.
You can download an ISO of Foundations and it will run without a license key for 30 days.
Maintenance upgrades to a new Foundations release are even easier. The entire OS is replaced, not patched in minutes and you can rollback with a mouseclick.
Life's hard enough to complicate things with finicky system restores.
{ Link }
Posted by Roland Reddekop At 03:50:05 PM On 07/30/2009 | - Website - |
So my windows machine needed to be restored.
Posted by Carl Tyler At 04:07:51 PM On 07/30/2009 | - Website - |
However, there's still a Foundation option suitable for for some client machine purposes whereby you install a Virtual Windows Machine on a Foundations server using the Foundations Run add-on. This VM can be used via Remote Desktop and is fully protected for quick DR by Foundations intelligent Disk Backup. Some companies use this for special purpose utility machines such one used for Quickbooks. Not likely a substitute at this time for your primary machine however.
For my laptop I just use Norton Ghost or Acronis and mirror my data to the server.
Posted by Roland Reddekop At 04:19:59 PM On 07/30/2009 | - Website - |