WHS question & HDD clone software advice

daphatgrant

daphatgrant

Fi-yah!
Joined
Jun 15, 2003
Messages
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Extremely brief back story: I built a file/media server about a year ago and have been having recurring problems for about the last 8 months :rolleyes:. Long story short I've now replaced everything in the computer with the exception of the HDD's and SATA card and am still getting the occasional "A disk read error has occurred" "Press Alt-Ctrl-Del to restart" during boot. I've run S.M.A.R.T. tests on all of the drives and all came back error free, I've also done extensive tests on the OS drive and have had no errors. My next step is to replace the OS HDD and see if that resolves the issue.



Question #1: What HDD clone software do you recommend? My main OS drive is a 1TB WD black drive, I plan on buying another so I have an exact duplicate to clone to.



Questions #2: In WHS if the main OS drive fails are you fubar? Or is the info on the other drives salvageable? I can't just throw another drive in, install the OS, and have it pick up the files can I? I'm assuming this is a no as my system was about full (24GB free). All the files that I care about have file duplication turned on.


System:
Norco 4020 case
PCP&C 750watt PSU
Abit IP35 Pro
C2D E6500
4GB PC2 6400
(1) 1TB WD Black drive (OS) (attached to board)
(8) 1TB WD Black drives (Storage) (attached to card)
SATA contoller (here)
 
There are threads on this topic all the time, but I'll save you some time and give you a link to instructions for swapping out your os drive.
http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/whsfaq/thread/cdb387f1-9baa-4ae3-a74b-ff351dc1c0bf

I haven't done it, but it seems like a pretty easy procedure. You shouldn't lose any of the data on your pool drives. You will have to reinstall any addins and redo your os settings, but that's about it. Oh, and you'll lose any backups of machines that backup to the whs (if you need to, you can save those too with the help of an addin).

Regarding your first question, cloning a whs system drive isn't like cloning a normal windows drive. You can do it, but it requires some gymnastics that may make it more trouble than it is worth. If you really want to, there are threads in here on how to do that, too.

Good luck.
 
Thank you both very much :D. It came with power pack 1, I'm not sure if it automatically updates to the other power pack's or not. This is going to take a little more work than I had anticipated :eek:. Ohh well, I've about run out of options so I'm going to have to give this a try.

Just to make sure I am understanding this correctly, there are no stored files on the main OS drive? The last time I moved anything over to the server was at least a month ago. The new drive has been ordered so I'll be embarking on this adventure very soon :).
 
nitrobass24 said:
There can be files stored on the system drive.
Click to expand...

But only under limited circumstances:

1. Your pool drives are full
or
2. you are using PP1

Post PP1, WHS no longer copies files to the second partition of the system drive before moving them to the pool. When you follow the steps to replace the system drive, you'll have a fresh install of WHS on the first partition (the C drive) and it will regenerate the tombstones that are stored on the second partition (this step can take some time).
 
leagle said:
There are threads on this topic all the time, but I'll save you some time and give you a link to instructions for swapping out your os drive.
http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/whsfaq/thread/cdb387f1-9baa-4ae3-a74b-ff351dc1c0bf

I haven't done it, but it seems like a pretty easy procedure. You shouldn't lose any of the data on your pool drives. You will have to reinstall any addins and redo your os settings, but that's about it. Oh, and you'll lose any backups of machines that backup to the whs (if you need to, you can save those too with the help of an addin).

Regarding your first question, cloning a whs system drive isn't like cloning a normal windows drive. You can do it, but it requires some gymnastics that may make it more trouble than it is worth. If you really want to, there are threads in here on how to do that, too.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

nitrobass24 said:
What PowerPack are you on?

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1494004&highlight=clone+whs
Click to expand...

nitrobass24 said:
There can be files stored on the system drive.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure there are then as it said I have 9TB's with 24GB free :(.
 
The clone will still work tho if you use the link i provided
 
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