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Tags: Windows Home Server

The last week my Windows Home Server got sick, and I started to receive dozens of error messages in the event log, and the WHS backup wouldn’t finish at all. In fact it crashed the server completely. This is not a good situation since I also run my Domino server on VMware-Server at the same box….

So, the event log was full of these …

 

Other messages were;

• The shadow copies of volume C:\fs\H were aborted because of an IO failure on volume C:\fs\H.
• Faulting application whsbackup.exe, version 6.0.2423.0, faulting module whsbackup.exe, version 6.0.2423.0, fault address 0x00063604.
• Client Backup server failed at d:\wssg_src\whs_pp3\qhs\src\backup\util\diskfile.cpp(455)
• The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.
• The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume C:\fs\H.
  

Obviously something was wrong.

… and when I search about “iaStor” it quickly turns out that this is the Intel Matrix Storage Manager and that it is an very important part of your OS installation. Searching also reveals that lots of people experience problems with iaStor, and often you don’t find exact answers. Answers like “try to reinstall” always makes me shiver ….

Lots of posts also suggested that I should actually do a chkdsk as one of the error messages also suggests. A chkdsk /r was issued, but it didn’t help at all. It wasn’t until I found a post with these lines …

 

net stop pdl

net stop whsbackup

chkdsk D: /x /r 

chkdsk C: /x /r

for /d %%1 in (C:\fs\*) do start chkdsk /x /r %%1

 

First of all, it didn’t take down the WHS completely, so my VMware server kept running. Secondly it properly stopped the WHS’s pdl and whsbackup services (persistent drive letter service, and the backup service repectivly) properly. Third and most important, it issued a chkdsk on each of the file systems in WHS. This step took approx 36 hours on my system, but when it was finished, and after a reboot, my system was all good again!

Thanks to the site We Got Served for a good forum – and thanks to all persistent individuals out there that keep on analyzing, working, sweating, swearing and fixing problems out there.

Posted by Robert Ibsen Voith At 10:22 AM Location Nøtterøy, Norway | Permalink | Comments (3) |      

Tags: Lotus Traveler Windows Home Server Windows Mobile Device Center
Some days are just .... days! Just after I had to restore Vista from my Windows Home Server in order to get Windows Mobile Device Center up and running again, I also had to restore my phone .... sigh....

Posted by Robert Ibsen Voith At 11:49 PM Location Nøtterøy, Norway | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Tags: Software Windows Home Server VMWare
Today the Windows Home Server (WHS) were updated with the latest VMWare Server 2.0. The setup routine had an issue with error message "Error 1718. File 52a15.msi was rejected by digital signature policy.". This turned out to be a known issue, also mentioned in the release notes (dang, reading all that stuff can  be cumbersome ). Install the hotfix from Microsoft to fix. After that, the biggest news for me was the Remote Web based application, also replacing the earlier console!  It took some time to set up, but seems to be working just fine. Now I can access the console of my Domino server from any browser! Cool! More to come!

Posted by Robert Ibsen Voith At 4:22 PM Location Nøtterøy, Norway | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Tags: Windows Home Server Software
During Easter this year, our Media Center PC had a hard disk crash. The Media Center PC luckily was one of the computers enrolled in our Windows Home Server system, and thus WHS maintained a daily backup of the system. Read about how the restore went!

Posted by Robert Ibsen Voith At 10:04 AM Location Nøtterøy, Norway | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Tags: Windows Home Server Lotus Domino Software
Learn how I run Lotus Domino in a virtual server ontop of Windows Home Server, all on one box.

Posted by Robert Ibsen Voith At 6:53 PM Location Nøtterøy, Norway | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Tags: Windows Home Server Software
As you may have read in my previous blogs, I've had my share of installation-issues with WHS. I'm therefore happy to report that WHS now has stabilized and runs fine. The issues that you have to be aware;

• Make sure you don't load WHS too fast, and not from many simultaneous sources. The Drive Extender obviously have some issues when many simultaneous sources pumps data ...
  

Try to keep the content on the WHS-shares as static as possible. Yes, this sounds crazy, but the more dynamic the data is, the more you risk to face the WHS data corruption problems. Click here to read the Microsoft article describing the issue.

Posted by Robert Ibsen Voith At 8:29 AM Location Nøtterøy, Norway | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Tags: Windows Home Server Software
Hmmm, I didn't feel comfortable with the small initial first disk I described yesterday, so I thought it was a good idea to replace the the primary disk. At the same time I went from IDE to SATA and ACHI. What a mess.... and what a night!!

Posted by Robert Ibsen Voith At 1:15 PM Location Nøtterøy, Norway | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Tags: Windows Home Server Software
This weekend we had a winter holiday in Norway, and traditionally everybody head off to their cabins to ski and play in the snow. Well, not so for my familiy. Both my youngest son and my wife caught fever, and we all had to stay at home.

Well, if you look at the bright side of things, I finally got the chance to upgrade my server to Windows Home Server (WHS)! I couldn't wait to get the backup-all-you-connected-machines services and dynamic extender-thingy into play!

Posted by Robert Ibsen Voith At 10:14 AM Location Nøtterøy, Norway | Permalink | Comments (2) |