SBS 2011 Rollup
A week ago we had a predictive failure on one of our raid drives. We had Dell come in to replace it and when the tech left, he told the client the mirroring will take about an hour. 6 hours later the (9:00 pm local time) the drive was copied but the system would not boot. Called Dell for support and at 4:15 the next morning the Resolution Manager told us that the original tech had called him to say the server would not come up, so he knew that at 3:00 pm but still told the client it would be up in an hour.
The client's backups had not run in months and no one noticed so when I got involved there was a possibility that the data was gone. Fortunately after 25 hours of continual work we were able to bring the server up and got the mail working. The next day I restored all of the data from the 2nd drive in the mirror, which I had disconnected to protect it.
Today Backup, SharePoint and Updates don't work so I do not want to run Chkdsk or re-establish the raid without a backup. Dell did a fairly good job getting the server is up but they seem to be unable to fully get the server functional and their suggestion is to rebuild from scratch after flat file copying of data. I would like to install SBS 2011 roll-up 4 to see if that will correct the issues before rebuilding but I have been unable to find the actual download for the roll-up. The closest I can get is to this URL (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2885319) but I don't see the actual download related to this roll-up. Am I missing something or does someone know the download URL?
Thanks
Rich
The client's backups had not run in months and no one noticed so when I got involved there was a possibility that the data was gone. Fortunately after 25 hours of continual work we were able to bring the server up and got the mail working. The next day I restored all of the data from the 2nd drive in the mirror, which I had disconnected to protect it.
Today Backup, SharePoint and Updates don't work so I do not want to run Chkdsk or re-establish the raid without a backup. Dell did a fairly good job getting the server is up but they seem to be unable to fully get the server functional and their suggestion is to rebuild from scratch after flat file copying of data. I would like to install SBS 2011 roll-up 4 to see if that will correct the issues before rebuilding but I have been unable to find the actual download for the roll-up. The closest I can get is to this URL (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2885319) but I don't see the actual download related to this roll-up. Am I missing something or does someone know the download URL?
Thanks
Rich
The Dell techs are no longer techs ,they are 3rd party contractors averaging about $10 to $12 bucks an hour plus mileage.
To put that in perspective ,McDonald's starting pay is $11.50 in the bay area.
To put that in perspective ,McDonald's starting pay is $11.50 in the bay area.
From your server try going to http://update.microsoft.com
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Essentials is not SBS,so ignore it and any docs relating to it.
My advice would be to run a sfc /scannow from an elevated command prompt to see if any of the system files are corrupted.
From there I would download the SBS best practices analyzer and see what it says.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2673284
My advice would be to run a sfc /scannow from an elevated command prompt to see if any of the system files are corrupted.
From there I would download the SBS best practices analyzer and see what it says.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2673284
ASKER
Thanks we did that last night and there were on issues found.
Couple of things I'm curious about,what RAID controller?
Hot swap?
Were they using the built in backup?
If so make and model of usb disks?
Hot swap?
Were they using the built in backup?
If so make and model of usb disks?
ASKER
it is a Perc 710 - not hot swap wired. I tried both MS Backup and BackupAssist and both of them stopped while trying to read drives. We are using Seagate 2TB external drives but i also tried doing this with drives removed. Another interesting aspect is when i split the drives from mirror i tried reading the drive through a SATA to USB connection and it would not acknowledge the drive. more and more i am thinking it may have to borrow a server and build a temporary system on it, wipe the failing one and rebuild it. that is why i am trying to run a roll-up hoping that would correct the issues.
and by the way - thanks
and by the way - thanks
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you are right - i have seen that in the past. However BackupAssist has no such restriction. I tried running a daily report on the server and it has been "Generating Report" for 4 hours. I did a flat file copy of all of the data so at least i have that.
I will reform the drives and change the sectors but i really believe the problem is simply the system is so unstable that we are playing with fire and my client has his business at risk. This weekend, unless i clear these problems, i will start to rebuild the server on a spare server as a bridge.
thanks
Rich
I will reform the drives and change the sectors but i really believe the problem is simply the system is so unstable that we are playing with fire and my client has his business at risk. This weekend, unless i clear these problems, i will start to rebuild the server on a spare server as a bridge.
thanks
Rich
From the BA site:
System Protection uses Windows imaging technology to create image backups. Therefore, the version of Windows you are using affects the disk sector size supported by your image backups.
Windows Server 2008 / 2008R2 and SBS 2008 / 2011 require 512 byte sector disks.
Windows Server 2012 / 2012R2 can use either 512 byte sector or 4k sector size disks.
System Protection uses Windows imaging technology to create image backups. Therefore, the version of Windows you are using affects the disk sector size supported by your image backups.
Windows Server 2008 / 2008R2 and SBS 2008 / 2011 require 512 byte sector disks.
Windows Server 2012 / 2012R2 can use either 512 byte sector or 4k sector size disks.
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Just a quick update - the client is a law firm and they live and die on e-mails. They are working right now but since i can't update and nor can I backup (even when i formatted with a 4K size) I and the office manager thought it was a better idea to just rebuild. The owner judges people on what they fail to do and his entire staff is terrified to tell him anything. I expect to have the replacement server here next Tuesday, i will build an identical server here (my home office) and when i am done, over a Sunday i will do a pull-push and have him up on his replacement machine. A week or two later i will reverse the process and get him back on his original machine. The client will also start using my service of monitoring the logs on a daily basis so that this will never happen again.
The other thing is i know there are bad tracks on the primary (and only) drive and i am terrified of running chkdsk until i have a full backup - i have done a flat file backup on data but if i run chkdsk and somehow compromise the server - well i really don't want to think about that. So we will do the two server switch.
Thanks all for your help.
Rich
The other thing is i know there are bad tracks on the primary (and only) drive and i am terrified of running chkdsk until i have a full backup - i have done a flat file backup on data but if i run chkdsk and somehow compromise the server - well i really don't want to think about that. So we will do the two server switch.
Thanks all for your help.
Rich
You CANNOT reformat a factory 4k disk to 512byte.
Those blurbs on the M$ site with patches and stuff do not work.
If you want a backup using the built in or BA get a factory formatted 512 disk.
Once the dust settles ,get a real 3rd party backup like Symantec System restore 2013 for SBS.
I use it for all of my SBS installs and it does it all for about $500 bucks.
No need to worry about 4k sector or size of backup disks.
As for bad tracks ,all modern disks have a bad block redirection mapping built in to them,so running a chkdsk probably won't break it anymore than what it allready is,plus corrupted data and bad blacks can cause issues when trying to just copy files.
One more thing to look at is to make sure vss writers are OK.
At an elevated command prompt type vssadmin list writers and note any failures listed.
Those blurbs on the M$ site with patches and stuff do not work.
If you want a backup using the built in or BA get a factory formatted 512 disk.
Once the dust settles ,get a real 3rd party backup like Symantec System restore 2013 for SBS.
I use it for all of my SBS installs and it does it all for about $500 bucks.
No need to worry about 4k sector or size of backup disks.
As for bad tracks ,all modern disks have a bad block redirection mapping built in to them,so running a chkdsk probably won't break it anymore than what it allready is,plus corrupted data and bad blacks can cause issues when trying to just copy files.
One more thing to look at is to make sure vss writers are OK.
At an elevated command prompt type vssadmin list writers and note any failures listed.
ASKER
Thanks - we did try to use BackupAssist to perform the backup. It failed the same way the native backup failed. When i reformatted the USB 2TB drives i did them with the 4k but we had used these same drives weeks ago before all of the problems started so i know it was not a compatibility, at least initially, between them. In fact the only way we go the system to come up was to apply a restore from one of these drives.
The fear is, unless we rebuild, we will be fighting little problems for the rest of our lives.
i really appreciate your help and i will post my progress on the board.
thanks again
Rich
The fear is, unless we rebuild, we will be fighting little problems for the rest of our lives.
i really appreciate your help and i will post my progress on the board.
thanks again
Rich
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Part of the help from Microsoft was a bat file to repair vss. The client didn't have the ability to do a bare metal restore because they were using the native backup (which didn't work in a very long time) so there is no backup from BA since we install BA after the fact and tried to use it to backup the system, which just didn't work.
We did restore the system files but that was from the last good backup we had when the server was located in Manhattan with a base IP of 192.168.1.2 and now it is in Nassau county and the base IP at that location was 10.0.0.4. I ran a number of wizards to make the server connect and that was as far as we could get. The system is up and running but, as i said, we can't backup, run daily logs or apply updates.
We did restore the system files but that was from the last good backup we had when the server was located in Manhattan with a base IP of 192.168.1.2 and now it is in Nassau county and the base IP at that location was 10.0.0.4. I ran a number of wizards to make the server connect and that was as far as we could get. The system is up and running but, as i said, we can't backup, run daily logs or apply updates.
ASKER
Just wanted to get back and close up this ticket. As i said we could not do backups or updates on this server. The client was told by her manager to "close up" the open server. She did and the server crashed. When she tried to restart she called me because it said it was applying updates. It took about 40 minutes but when the server finally came up i was able to run BackupAssist and the backup ran successfully. I then was able to re-install the Update WSUS and got that working. Finally running Best Practices there was one issue with SharePoint which was subsequently corrected. So, basically the server is up and running without any issues now. Unfortunately, i did purchase a server for the swapping but i will use it for other clients who need to upgrade.
So the net is the machine is working and the only outstanding issue is to mirror the new drive.
Thanks for all of your help
Rich
So the net is the machine is working and the only outstanding issue is to mirror the new drive.
Thanks for all of your help
Rich
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/sbs/2012/12/12/update-rollup-4-for-windows-small-business-server-2011-essentials-available-now/
I don't see a separate download. I'll keep looking though.