Topic: operating system not found - HELP!!

[TerryF]

AAAAARGH,

Doesn't seem to be working...

THEN Nothing for about 1/2 hour.

Is it compatible with V8.1?

How big is the backup?

The restore may take longer than 1/2 hour...

Not sure about DAR2 and 8.1 it used to work on 8.0

The question re is the backup archive OK is going to be the biggy..

Good Luck

[btaactive]

Installing 7.6.

Hopefully it will read the DARs

[btaactive]

Looks Like I am totally stuffded.

Getting error
FATAL error, aborting operation
Badly formatted terminator, cannot extract catalogue location

when testing the DAR file.

Well, off to Data Recovery specialist.

Thanks for you help.

[TerryF]

Feel for you, been there and don't want to be there again

I would have been hopeful that one drive was still readable, rare to see both fail at same time..

or one failed some time ago and went unnoticed maybe?

Anyway good luck..

[JohnG]

Yeah I'm guessing the array was already degraded when the 2nd one failed. Out of curiosity, what make/model drives are they?

[Stefano]

Yeah I'm guessing the array was already degraded when the 2nd one failed. Out of curiosity, what make/model drives are they?

the right question is "does anybody reads admin's emails?"

[stephdl]

the right question is "does anybody reads admin's emails?"

The contribs smeserver-raidstatus send an email each week on the current state of Your Arrays, (furthermore you can also see them in the server-manager). Of course you can decide which recipient will be concerned.

I have done that because the email admin box is often spammed by many other 'important' informations.

[btaactive]

Thanks All.....

Thought i was pretty good with Raid 1 and DAR2 Backups...

Well you learn dont you.

$700 restoration fee from data recovery experts.

Anyway, shiny new 8.1 SME running fresh new drives. Will know what to look out for now. Will be doing S3 backups this time also.

Thanks again for the time you all took to respond and advise.

Really appreciated.

[TerryF]

What was the diagnosis?

What did they do to recover data?

[janet]

btaactive

S3 = cloud, Internet is slow for big data backups & retrieval.

Better I think to have 2 x USB drives & rotate (swap) them daily, & use the server manager Backup & Restore function to configure a full & then daily incremental backup(s) to the locally connected USB drive. Use the backup to workstation function & select local USB drive as the destination. This runs automatically every night & will tolerate if you forget to swap the USB backup disk.
Remove the USB drive not currently being used to a safe off site location every night.
That way you have two backups in case one fails, as well as RAID1 redundancy.

Relatively fast restore from locally attached USB drive when or if needed
Sleep soundly at nights then.

Stop using DAR2 as it has been superseded by the current sme server backup system that uses DAR.
AFAIK DAR2 is no longer supported.
I would use Affa instead if you must create seperate different backup jobs.
Despite bug warnings etc, backup to (& Restore from) local USB drive seems OK using Affa.

[btaactive]

Thanks Janet,

Yes, thats what I'll do, But will send to S3 as well on weekends.

Appreciate the comments.

[btaactive]

Terry,

Going to pick up drive now. Apparently they got it all. Not sure how they do it, pretty fancy place and $700 later!

The first drive was a total write-off

[TerryF]

Sounds like you needed it back up and running data intact quicktime..

I may have doodled around a bit, as is my want, sends my wife crazy  trying to get into the drives..

I am also  a bit fish like where $$ are concerned, you know, water tight...

All the best with the new setup..

[JohnG]

Terry,

Going to pick up drive now. Apparently they got it all. Not sure how they do it, pretty fancy place and $700 later!

The first drive was a total write-off

What was the make and model of the drives?

[janet]

TerryF

I may have doodled around a bit, as is my want, sends my wife crazy  trying to get into the drives..

You cannot safely open drives, they are hermetically sealed. It can only be done in a clean environment, sealed from normal air contaminants.
If one microscopic particle of dust gets inside, the drive surfaces are ruined.
 

I am also  a bit fish like where $$ are concerned, you know, water tight...

When critical data is involved, the seemingly high cost of data recovery can be small compared to the cost of time & effort (man or woman power where possible) to recreate the data.