Broken R2 dashboard

[ALH]

Well, I was happy for at least five minutes (see post below) but now  I know what crashed my server software last time. It was loading the HighPoint RocketRAID 2720 SGL SAS Controller driver. Nothing like verifying a mistake by repeating it.

After carefully following the advice  below, I had my media server auto starting and having a look at the files on the server and loading the lot up into Media Centre. Just like a bought one. And I was happy.

And then I decided to load up the driver for the HighPoint 2720 SGL 8 port SATA card.
It breaks the dashboard including reporting:
no users,
no devices,
no add-ins (which actually is true)

and the recommended fix  - starting up Windows Server Essentials Management Service throws an error "Error 1067: the process terminated unexpectedly." And could not start.The server OS can find the hard drives (pre-existing, not the ones connected to the card) including the pre-existing RAID drives and drivebender is still working

I've tried to reinstall the original chipset drivers but that didn't result in any change. And the server backup is one of the hard drives I can no longer access. I have two, yes two, hot swap bays in the front of the PC for server backup off-site story. And both were empty. The server backup is a 1 TB drive inside the box read via the chipset.

Any suggestions to get it going again before I pull the box apart and find the 1 TB hard drive which the server software using for a backup and shove it in a USB docking station? It is probably corrupt.

Edited February 15, 2015 by ALH

[Drashna Jaelre]

try running "wbadmin delete catalog". Then reboot...

[ALH]

Drashna,
it worked. The system restored off the internal image. First-time. Once I had somebody physically capable of plugging in my external DVD player and the installation disk, it was only a matter of minutes to pick up the system image and restore to a fully working system. Do I sound surprised? I am very surprised after the previous experience of corrupted backups with Server 2012.

Now I just need to work out how to install the 2720SGL RAID card without trashing the server...
Cheers,
Allan H

[ikon]

Are you planning to RAID on the card, or are you going to have the 2720SGL RAID just JBOD the drives and then use something like DrivePool to pool them?