* The loss *
I have an HP EX485 MediaSmart WHS, which I've had for many years since I bought up upon it's initial release. I can just kick myself right now for having set off what I believe to be a cascade of errors, leaving me now in a state where I may have lost all of my server data, nearly 2.9 TB out of 3.3 TB total storage. (Most of this, however, is not critical, as 1.9 TB alone are documentaries [inefficiently] recorded from Media Center, and another, perhaps around 300 GB, being videos that I can afford to lose, and so were not duplicated.)
However the balance of ~700 GB, which are all duplicated data so probably represents 350 GB actual data, includes precious photos and personal data. (Though the bulk of this is still probably mostly old backups of 3 client computers and operating system files.)
* A bit of background *
So this is what had happened that got me to this point. For most of the time that I've had the server running, I have not been able to properly configure it for remote access. As this is not a feature I use much at all, it hasn't been a big deal.
* What may have started the downhill slide *
But just the other day when I couldn't leave well enough alone, I decided to take another stab at getting remote access running. (Since I know little about networking, I was probably in an area I shouldn't have messed around with.) Deciding that I needed to setup port forwarding in my router for ports 80, 443, and 4125, I used Remote Desktop to connect with my WHS and fixed its IP address (to 192.168.1.105) and subnet mask (to 255.255.255.0). However not knowing what to use as the Gateway address, I left that blank. As soon as I closed the dialog box, my Remote Desktop session shut down.
* Losing access to my WHS *
From this point on I have been unable to access my Home Server. I tried to ping it via its computer name, EX485MediaServr, from my workstation, which failed. However I was able to ping it, (or at least I assumed it was my Home Server), at 192.168.1.105, though I couldn't reach it using the Windows Home Server console, not a complete surprise since I wasn't able to ping it by its computer name.
Whatever was going on, it would eventually appear to "shut down" some 10 minutes after a boot, turning all lights (all drive LEDs and all bottom LEDs) off. I tried rebooting several times, but each time it would shut down on me in the same manner.
* Attempting a server recovery *
Thinking that I had lost all useful access to my WHS, I decided to try a server recovery, which I've done a number of times in the past with no issues. However this time the server recovery would just close on me at the point where it should otherwise wait for the server to reboot several times. Also the server would end up in a state where all lights were slowly pulsating blue at roughly every 3 seconds (all drive LEDs and all bottom LEDs).
At this point I found I could Remote Dekstop to the WHS using its default name of HPServer, but I would get stuck at the login screen, having not yet reached the part in the failed server recovery where I would've given it a name and password.
I tried repeating the server recovery several times, to no avail. At this point I was at a loss for why any of this should happen, but in the past I've found that I can insert a blank new drive into the system drive, leave my existing data drives in, and safely do a server recovery. Like magic it would do a complete repair, finding all of the existing data on the attached data drives.
* Reformat system drive and attempt a server recovery *
So at this point I decided to do a quick format of my system drive, then repeat the server recovery process. This time I was able to complete the entire server recovery process, or at least so I thought.
* Connect to WHS via console and finding no data! *
After going through all of the system updates, I finally connected via the Windows Home Server console and to my shock all of my data was gone!
So using a USB drive enclosure I then mounted my two data drives directly to my client to inspect them, and sure enough I found them to be empty of any of my old data.
I don't know how this had happened, as I had only performed a server recovery. Yes, I did reformat my system drive, but in the past I've done a restore on a blank new system drive and it had always reinstalled the system and found all of my data in the attached drives just fine. Could it have been the back-to-back server recoveries that caused the data loss? Or could it be the very first server recovery where it had failed midway?
* Seeking your expert advice *
What I need to now from the home server community is what, if anything, I can do now to possibly recover my data. I'm assuming that whatever the system restore did to "erase" my data, it wouldn't have literally rewritten the drive surfaces clean. If that is the case, how effective would an undelete utility be on WHS data drives? Are the files at all in a recognizeable form? Would I be able to recognize the files at all when revealed using an undelete utility? Or as I fear does the very "single instance store" technology used in WHS obscure everything into oblivion?
Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated, with many thanks in advance.
I have an HP EX485 MediaSmart WHS, which I've had for many years since I bought up upon it's initial release. I can just kick myself right now for having set off what I believe to be a cascade of errors, leaving me now in a state where I may have lost all of my server data, nearly 2.9 TB out of 3.3 TB total storage. (Most of this, however, is not critical, as 1.9 TB alone are documentaries [inefficiently] recorded from Media Center, and another, perhaps around 300 GB, being videos that I can afford to lose, and so were not duplicated.)
However the balance of ~700 GB, which are all duplicated data so probably represents 350 GB actual data, includes precious photos and personal data. (Though the bulk of this is still probably mostly old backups of 3 client computers and operating system files.)
* A bit of background *
So this is what had happened that got me to this point. For most of the time that I've had the server running, I have not been able to properly configure it for remote access. As this is not a feature I use much at all, it hasn't been a big deal.
* What may have started the downhill slide *
But just the other day when I couldn't leave well enough alone, I decided to take another stab at getting remote access running. (Since I know little about networking, I was probably in an area I shouldn't have messed around with.) Deciding that I needed to setup port forwarding in my router for ports 80, 443, and 4125, I used Remote Desktop to connect with my WHS and fixed its IP address (to 192.168.1.105) and subnet mask (to 255.255.255.0). However not knowing what to use as the Gateway address, I left that blank. As soon as I closed the dialog box, my Remote Desktop session shut down.
* Losing access to my WHS *
From this point on I have been unable to access my Home Server. I tried to ping it via its computer name, EX485MediaServr, from my workstation, which failed. However I was able to ping it, (or at least I assumed it was my Home Server), at 192.168.1.105, though I couldn't reach it using the Windows Home Server console, not a complete surprise since I wasn't able to ping it by its computer name.
Whatever was going on, it would eventually appear to "shut down" some 10 minutes after a boot, turning all lights (all drive LEDs and all bottom LEDs) off. I tried rebooting several times, but each time it would shut down on me in the same manner.
* Attempting a server recovery *
Thinking that I had lost all useful access to my WHS, I decided to try a server recovery, which I've done a number of times in the past with no issues. However this time the server recovery would just close on me at the point where it should otherwise wait for the server to reboot several times. Also the server would end up in a state where all lights were slowly pulsating blue at roughly every 3 seconds (all drive LEDs and all bottom LEDs).
At this point I found I could Remote Dekstop to the WHS using its default name of HPServer, but I would get stuck at the login screen, having not yet reached the part in the failed server recovery where I would've given it a name and password.
I tried repeating the server recovery several times, to no avail. At this point I was at a loss for why any of this should happen, but in the past I've found that I can insert a blank new drive into the system drive, leave my existing data drives in, and safely do a server recovery. Like magic it would do a complete repair, finding all of the existing data on the attached data drives.
* Reformat system drive and attempt a server recovery *
So at this point I decided to do a quick format of my system drive, then repeat the server recovery process. This time I was able to complete the entire server recovery process, or at least so I thought.
* Connect to WHS via console and finding no data! *
After going through all of the system updates, I finally connected via the Windows Home Server console and to my shock all of my data was gone!
So using a USB drive enclosure I then mounted my two data drives directly to my client to inspect them, and sure enough I found them to be empty of any of my old data.
I don't know how this had happened, as I had only performed a server recovery. Yes, I did reformat my system drive, but in the past I've done a restore on a blank new system drive and it had always reinstalled the system and found all of my data in the attached drives just fine. Could it have been the back-to-back server recoveries that caused the data loss? Or could it be the very first server recovery where it had failed midway?
* Seeking your expert advice *
What I need to now from the home server community is what, if anything, I can do now to possibly recover my data. I'm assuming that whatever the system restore did to "erase" my data, it wouldn't have literally rewritten the drive surfaces clean. If that is the case, how effective would an undelete utility be on WHS data drives? Are the files at all in a recognizeable form? Would I be able to recognize the files at all when revealed using an undelete utility? Or as I fear does the very "single instance store" technology used in WHS obscure everything into oblivion?
Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated, with many thanks in advance.