jwcolby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Mon Dec 31 16:08:20 CST 2007
Gary, I do use passwords. The only system in the house that does not have passwords is my son's and that only because he is 6 years old and I don't want to have to go type it in for him all of the time. He will eventually have a password as well. As for the network problem, make sure that the wireless and wired NIC are on the same subnet. IOW I use 192.168.122.X for my business network and 192.168.1.X on my home network. Since the WHS resides on the business network it is assigned an IP address in the 192.168.122.X range and it cannot see the 192.168.1.X machines. John W. Colby Colby Consulting www.ColbyConsulting.com -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gary Kjos Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 4:41 PM To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Storebought WHS It's XP Pro. Interestingly enough I unplugged the wired connection and enabled the wireless and it installed the client piece without any complaints. So evidently had I dont that originally I would have not had any problems to complain about. I'm guessing that something network wise is configured correctly on the wireless and is not quite as it wants it to be on the wired connection. Netbios or Netbui or some other network thing that I don't know about nor do I want to ;-) It was getting all the way to the end of the install and then erroring with a message that allowed me to go back and try it again from the point of "searching for the server". Anyway, it's working now. My wifes laptop is being backed up over the wireless connection now. It's showing 78% complete. It's only been running for about 15 minutes. So I'm thinking a full backup over the wireless in less than a half hour isn't bad at all I think she has a 60 Gb drive. Windows XP Pro and Office 2003. A few of my photos and quite a lot of Music in Itunes. Once it has a good backup only doing the changed files should only take a couple minutes. As soon as hers is backed up Iwill fire off my backup and then I will have everything backed up. Whew! That will be a good feeling. I have had my data files backed up pretty well but I would have been left with the windows and application installation disks if I had lost a C drive on any of these. And I have. The one system I had a crash of the system drive was my least used system though. It wants everything to have passwords though don't it. I didn't have passwords on anything. It's got me to add one to one of my systems so far. Not sure if I will succumb to it's warnings on my other systems. Is it worth fighting? Is it really a good idea? DO you password protect your systems at home? GK On Dec 31, 2007 12:41 PM, jwcolby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote: > Gary, > > Thanks for the update. I have to say I am impressed with WHS all > things considered. This is the first release as we all know, not even > a service pack yet, and I think it runs pretty smoothly. > > Is the laptop that you are having problems with windows XP / 2k3 or Vista? > It can see the server but cannot map the drives or anything? Can you > go in to the WHS from another machine and set up the user / password > for that machine? What happens when it "dies"? Any error messages or just hangs? > > John W. Colby > Colby Consulting > www.ColbyConsulting.com > > -----Original Message----- > From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gary Kjos > Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 12:15 PM > To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues > Subject: [dba-Tech] Storebought WHS > > I bought the Windows Home Server system put together by HP, called the > HP MediaSmart Server. > > http://h71036.www7.hp.com/hho/cache/447351-0-0-225-121.html > > I bought it from Amazon for $577.52 including free shipping. I also > purchased two additional 500 GB SATA disk drives for it from > MicroCenter for $100 each. > > Both the additional drives and the server itself arrived on Friday so > on Saturday I opend up the boxes and got started. I decided to pop in > the new drives right off the bat and that went well. You can do it > without even powering down the server. Just open the front door to > access the drives and slide out an unused tray, pop in the drive and > slide the tray back in. If the system is up you need to go into the > management console and tell it to start using the new drives but since > I hadn't gotten that far yet I never needed to do that. > > I hooked it up to the network and powered it up and all appeared to be > as it should be. I decided to use my laptop to be the first system to > connect to the server so I booted it up and connected it to the > network via hard wired ethernet. Had a bit of trouble getting the > wireless to stop working to but eventually got that to stop by > disabling the wireless and rebooting. I then loaded the client > software CD and tried to load the Server Management client software on > the laptop. It bombed out at the point where it was "trying to locate > server" according to the message. It's right there I thought ;-) Look to your right. I disabled the software firewall and tried it again. > Still no good. I downloaded and ran a Connector Software Trouble > Shooter and looked at the things it saw as trouble. I tried a bunch of > IPCONFIG things and things of that nature but had no luck getting the > management software to install on my laptop. Grrrr. Tried rebooting > the server. Tried rebooting the laptop. > > As I had another system sitting right next to the server, I decided to > try installing the software on that one and low and behold it > installed and ran right away. Had no problem finding the server. I was > able to assign the main system password and set up a couple user > accounts and got ths system started backing up that system. The backup > didn't take too long, but it died at some point before it finished and > told me that there was a potential problem with one of the two hard > drives on that system and that I should run chkdsk /f on it. Great! > So after some cursing I got working on that. And while the check disk > was running I installed the client software on another PC. That one > installed without any problem either and I got a backup going on it > right away. That backup finished successfully and I was feeling better about the whole deal. > Checkdisk finished on the other system eventually and reported nothing > that it couldn't fix, so after I got it booted back up again I > restarted that backup there and it ran OK that time. > > I decided to have another go at the laptop and was still not able to > get it to install that client peice. I even tried to install the > software FROM the server itself which it could see and map a drive to > and that didn't work either. It got to just before the installation > should have been complete and it died. > > I then installed the software on my main system - a Windows Vista > system and it installed there without any issues and I got the backup > run there successfully too. > > I still have my wifes laptop to try the client install and backup on > before I try it on my own laptop once more. I think i will try it > using the regular wireless netowrk connection on her system. > > The nightly backups ran fine on two of those three systems last night > although it failed on the third - the same system that I was told to > do the checkdisk on. Upon further investigation I found that Windows > Update had caused a reboot on that system last night and it evidently > happened while the backup was running. It was sitting at the select > user reboot screen this morning and after I got it booted up I > restarted the backup and it worked just fine. > > At this point I haven't done any of the other things that I can use > this server for - sharing ITUNES music, allowing remote access to > other systems, and I don't even remember what else all it can do for > me. My main interest is in it's backup capabilities. I now have my 3 > desktops all backed up but I still have the two laptops to get backed up. > > The server itself is very quiet. MUCH quieter than the other PC that > is sitting right next to it. I determined that this morning after I > shut down that system after getting it successfully backed up. It's > about half the height of a normal tower system and about 2/3 the > depth. Kind of cute actually ;-) I know that's important to a lot of people. > > So at this early stage other than the one install issue I am having > with the laptop I am pretty happy with it. Of the 1.5 Terrabytes of > disk it has, it said that 1.2 terrabytes were still free after backing > up the 2 Windows XP Pro desktops and the one Vista Home Premium Desktop. > > I'll tell you more when I have more to tell. > > -- > Gary Kjos > garykjos at gmail.com > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > -- Gary Kjos garykjos at gmail.com _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com