Episode 113 of "The Home Server Show" podcast is available with the weeks WHS news and views from Dave and the gang, which you can listen to (or download) from here.
The HP Small Business Direct online store is now selling the Data Robotics’ Drobo S.
The new Drobo S solution supports USB 3.0, Drobo Sync (their easy to use remote backup software), hard drive capacities up to 32TB, backwards compatibility for USB 2.0 systems along with the Drobo’s BeyondRAID technology.
HP call centers already have many professionals who have been trained on Drobo which was released today in their Small Business Direct online store along with the Drobo, Drobo FS, and DroboPro models.
The Drobo S is available starting at $799 with configurations up to $1,799 for a 10TB unit. Drobo Sync is included free with the purchase of any new Drobo S and is available as a free software upgrade to existing DroboPro FS customers. The DroboPro FS starts at $1,999 up to $3,299 for a 16TB unit.
All the mdels discussed are available here at the HP Small Business Direct online store.
Our friend Martin Rothschink has been in touch to announce that the second preview edition of Lights-Out for Vail/Aurora users is now available.
Version 1.0.9 Build 1375 includes the following changes:
New recording of wake-up source
The wake-up source is now recorded and displayed, Wake-on-Lan by your network card, pressing the power button and the Windows task scheduler. The latter is used by Lights-Out calendar events.
When a standby request is denied by backup or Remote Access you will see this also under Recorded Events.
New Standby now
The task pane contains a new command to put your server immediately into standby.
New display of next scheduled backup time
This shows you all scheduled backup times of your clients.
The task pane contains a new command to add network devices with a fixed IP address.
Other changes
Lights-Out does now detect and handle disk operations like adding or removing disks and volumes.
Lights-Out does now wake-up your server to run maintenance tasks like backup cleanup or consistency checks.
The msi file can be downloaded directly from here, whilst a 46 page guide including release notes in PDF format is also available.
A new beta version of Lights-Out for Windows Home Server v1 users has been announced.
Version 1.0.9 Beta includes the following changes:
The msi file can be downloaded directly from here, whilst the complete change list (as a PDF file) is available here.
Have a question or problem?
I can’t guarantee an answer, but I’ll try. Click “ask a question” above!
Dale Asks:
Any reason(s) you know why I should not remove WHS from my HP Mediasmart Server EX487 and install ”Aurora” ? My application is more business than personal. Thanks for your consideration.
I can’t see any reason what so ever why this would be a problem, essentially Vail is the same operating system as Aurora and that installs without any issues on the EX487. My advice would be to wait until the final version arrives especially as you will be using it for business use, as you may already know Aurora is still in Beta and has still got bugs, it would definitely be worth the wait in the long run.
Tony Asks:
My RAID 0 drive failed so I took the opportunity when replacing the drive(s) to upgrade to windows 7 ultimate 64bit from Vista 32.
I know I cannot do a complete backup from Windows Home Server but must replace file-by-file.
I am an avid gamer and while I know I have to re-install each game I would like to recover my game status/progress on several games if possible. Where do I find these files on Windows Home Server?
When you mount a backup that you want to restore, you will find it opens a mapped drive on Z:\ here you should see the exact file structure your Hard Drive previous had.
For instance if you wanted to retrieve your saved game files from Football Manager 2011 on Windows 7 you would go to “Z:\Users\Username\Documents\Sports Interactive\FM2011\Saved Games\” in Windows XP you would go to “Z:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\Sports Interactive\FM2011\Saved Games\”
Joar Asks:
A few weeks ago my Windows Home Server did not start up anymore. I am pretty sure that it wouldn’t boot up correctly because when I push the power button it stops immediately.
Then I removed the system disk and connected it to my workstation and run chkdsk \r/f on the system partition only. Inserted it again and my WHS started up again and it was available through remote desktop.
When I now go to the Windows Home Server console >> Server Storage tab, it says system disk is missing and it keep on calculating server storage without result. There is also a new hard drive ready for ”adding” and that must be the original volume. The question is, how can I add the original volume again without formatting it?
Click to enlarge
What has happened is the Disk ID’s that Windows Home Server has got for your hard drive, is now different from the one it had for the Hard Drive before you have done the CHKDSK on your workstation.
What you will need to do is go into the BIOS of your WHS in order to retrieve the old ID, follow below:
Click to enlarge
Once you have finished with ymboc you have should now be able to see your system drive present in the Server Storage tab and showing as Healthy.
Max Asks:
I cannot sign in to Homeserver.com from my copy of Windows Home Server. I have my Hotmail account and have access to Messenger, Hotmail and Live.
I do have communications with Homeserver.com in as much as the sign in screen comes up. Windows Home Server says everything is working.
What exactly do I put in the sign in area for a user name and for the password? I have changed my sign in many times without success. Do I have to put ”@hotmail.com” along with my username? Nothing I try seems to make a difference; I still cannot log in.
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
The first thing to note is that you don’t need to use your Messenger, Hotmail or Live sign in id in order to login to Windows Home Server Remotely, all you need is you username and password that you would normally logon to your PC at home.
Example:
I logon to my PC in my office with the Username: matt and the Password: 123456789, my Windows Home Server web page is available at “matthewglover.homeserver.com”, once I get to this page and it asks for my username and password it is actually asking for the username and password I use to logon to my office PC, so I put in Username: matt and the Password: 123456789 and that then allows me to login.
The only time you need to use your “Messenger, Hotmail or Live sign in id” is when you are setting up your Windows Home Server for remote access; it will then store your IP address on your account and keep it up to date.
Have a question or problem?
I can’t guarantee an answer, but I’ll try. Click “ask a question” above!
Written by
Matthew Glover
www.matthewglover.co.uk
www.lpower.co.uk | Quality Laptop Batteries, 30 Day Money Back Guarantee, 12 Month Warranty.
KeepVault have just announced an open beta for the KeepVault Connector for Mac OSX.
This will allow Mac users to simplify the process of sync’ing files from their Mac to their Windows Home Server, and has all the features and simplicity as their Windows Connector client.
KeepVault Connector for Mac OSX Highlights:
CloudBerry Lab have today announced that they will have a CloudBerry Backup add-in for Windows Home Server "Vail" available shortly.
The team are currently working on the add-in, as well as a version for "Aurora" and the good news is that both will be free for existing Windows Home Server customers.
From the 8th – 12th November (2010) TechEd Europe was taking place in Berlin, Germany for technology professionals who are involved in building, deploying or maintaining IT solutions using Microsoft technologies.
There this year was Microsoft’s Senior Product Manager Michael Leworthy who gave a 45 minute presentation on Windows Home Server "Vail".
Want to know more about WHS code name “Vail”? Interested in changes from V1, new technologies, features and updates? In this lunch time session we will overview the latest HomeServer release and demonstrate deployment, configuration, usability, streaming, customization and add-in support – and more!
You can watch the video here.
Sean Daniel has posted the presentation material on Aurora (Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials) from SMBNation 2010.
The slide deck can be downloaded from Sean’s site here.
For those of you with the Acer Aspire easyStore H341 or H342 models, then here is a link to the 74 page Service Guide.
The service manual takes a look at the Acer supplied system utilities and goes through system troubleshooting. Disassembly of the unit as well as a system block diagram are included as is the mainboard layout and system jumpers.
Thanks to fellow MVP Yoshihiro Okabe for the link.
