Finally updated to 7.1.9

[AtariJeff]

I've been running V7.0.23 on my WHS V1 since it came out. I'm a big fan "of it ain't broke..." to keep the FAF (Family Acceptance Factor) high. From what I've read the upgrade to 7.1.9 would nuke my wiz.bin and therefore all of the watched history, favs, etc. so I put it off. Finally, yesterday I wrote down all of our favs, backed up the whole SageTV directory and proceeded to run the install through the WHS console. I did not uninstall the old version manually. Much to my surprise everything was there Updated the STV and everything is up to date. The family didn't even know anything happened except "Dad fixed YouTube". Sometimes when the planets align and the moon is at the right phase a software upgrade actually goes as planned. Feeling confident now, I'm off to update the iPhones...

[nyplayer]

Where did you read 7.1.9 would nuke your wiz.bin if you did it is not true.

[Fuzzy]

I'm pretty sure I would have seen and corrected a comment like that. The only thing that WOULD have been said, and is true, is that upgrading the software ALSO upgrades the wiz.bin file, which would then not be backwards compatible with 7.0.23, so you couldn't easily downgrade.

[gplasky]

And even though that is true, an automatic backup of your current wiz.bin is made whenever you do an upgrade to an existing installation. And with the metadata also being stored in the recordings you really wouldn't lose anything going back to the backup. (I don't think.) The 7.0.23 wiz.bin should read in the metadata. You may lose "watched" status history.

Gerry

[Fuzzy]

as well as any favorites changes during that period.

[AtariJeff]

Maybe I misread that somewhere then. Upgrades can often time be a gamble. Anyhoo, it's all good.

[troycheek]

Whatever it was, I misread it as well. I was also under the impression that one of the recent updates (not sure which one) would kill the wiz.bin file. I only later realized it was like Fuzzy said and the updated wiz.bin would not allow you to revert to an earlier version of SageTV.

[davephan]

Just make sure to image your system before the upgrade. You can very easily recover back to a working system if the upgrade fails. If the upgrade goes well, then take another image to protect you against future computer problems. Running a computer without an image is like driving a car without a spare tire.

My upgrade to 7.1.9 went very smoothly.

Dave

[mangriotis]

Sorry for the slight shift in topic, but

What software do you use to "image your system"? I have a client pc and have only one HDD in it. I have tried using Acronis True Image and Norton Ghost, but have found both a little difficult to work with (I am inexperienced with drive image software in general).

Ideally, I would like to do the following:
- Hook up a second hard drive (the secondary drive).
- Store an image of the primary drive onto the secondary.
- To restore, I could boot from the secondary and restore to the primary.

Is that even how you use these software packages? If so, any chance you could post steps on how to do this?

(What I did do was clone the drive, but when I removed the original and booted from the clone, Sage client would not connect to the server...)

[wayner]

WHS is useful for imaging all of the PCs on your LAN on a nightly basis.

[mangriotis]

I totally forgot that. Indeed, my WHS is backing up my client regularly. Is that truly an image?

For instance, if I go and start over with the client machine (i.e. format the drive, and start from scratch), will last night's backup fully restore it? I have never tried this.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by mangriotis

I totally forgot that. Indeed, my WHS is backing up my client regularly. Is that truly an image?

For instance, if I go and start over with the client machine (i.e. format the drive, and start from scratch), will last night's backup fully restore it? I have never tried this.

If you can boot from the restore cd and access your WHS server then yes you can get a bare metal restore done. I have always had to add a network card to my PC when I tried it because the onboard ones don't have the drivers on the restore CD. I have also heard comments that it doesn't always work (the restore) but I have never encountered that once I get past the "no network card detected" problem.

[panteragstk]

I just started using paragon advanced free version. Nice software. Comparable to the features I want from ghost and the other major imaging softwares.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by mangriotis

I totally forgot that. Indeed, my WHS is backing up my client regularly. Is that truly an image?

For instance, if I go and start over with the client machine (i.e. format the drive, and start from scratch), will last night's backup fully restore it? I have never tried this.

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

If you can boot from the restore cd and access your WHS server then yes you can get a bare metal restore done. I have always had to add a network card to my PC when I tried it because the onboard ones don't have the drivers on the restore CD. I have also heard comments that it doesn't always work (the restore) but I have never encountered that once I get past the "no network card detected" problem.

On the other hand I have added the neccessary NIC driver to the restoreCD and was able to do full restores from that. There is documentaion out there as to how to create that restoreCD with any neccessary driver. NIC, video, etc. You can do a complete computer restore or you can drag and drop files or folders to restore.

Gerry

[wayner]

The only thing that can complicate this restore is if your running a 64 bit version of Windows - is that the case?

[gplasky]

No. That is what I have restored is my Windows 64 bit PC. Actually 2 different 64 bit systems have been restored from the Restore CD. Remember it is an image. The backup is a standard WIM image. Same format you'll find on any recent Windows Installation DVD.

Gerry

[AtariJeff]

If you open one of the PC backups from the WHS console there will be a directory with drivers specific to that PC. Copy them to a USB drive and plug it in when you boot from the WHS Restore CD. It will pick them up from there.

[wayner]

I thought there was an issue where these drivers in that directory will be 64 bit if your system is 64 bit, but the WHS restore client is 32 bit and will not work with 64 bit drivers. Therefore you have to manually locate the 32 bit drivers to use when you do your restore, assuming that WHS doesn't have these automatically. And WHS doesn't seem to have drivers for the Realtek NIC that is commonly used on (to name one brand) Asus mobos.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by wayner

I thought there was an issue where these drivers in that directory will be 64 bit if your system is 64 bit, but the WHS restore client is 32 bit and will not work with 64 bit drivers. Therefore you have to manually locate the 32 bit drivers to use when you do your restore, assuming that WHS doesn't have these automatically. And WHS doesn't seem to have drivers for the Realtek NIC that is commonly used on (to name one brand) Asus mobos.

All you do is download the 32 bit driver from your NIC manufacturer (Realtek) and follow the process:

You must follow the steps below.

1. Download the network drivers from the Realtek Website:

Realtek driver

a. Download the Vista (WinServer 2008) Driver.
Note: I actually downloaded all the Windows XP and Vista drivers (4 different sets) and deleted all the drivers marked 64 bit (64 bit drivers WILL not work)

2. Extract all the zip files onto the ROOT of a USB flash without a folder and plug the USB flash into the client PC.

3. Then apply the downloaded NIC driver(s) with the Windows Home Server Restore CD

a. On the detect hardware screen, select the appropriate time/currency format and keyboard/input method

b. Detect hardware dialog will detect the Realtek network device RTL8168C/8111C Family PCI-E Gigibit ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.0 but it will not be usable because of hardware and driver incompatibility.

c. Manually update the driver from the USB flash
i. Select the “Show Details…” button
ii. Press the “Install Drivers…”
iii. Push “Scan” button to scan for new/updated d rives
iv. A dialogue box will pop up:
"Drivers were found for your hardware.
Click OK to see all detected hardware."
vi. Select OK

d. Verify that you have updated the Network driver.

You should now see your specific NIC hardware listed in the “Detect Hardware” dialog screen as Realtek PCIe GBE family Controller.

Continue following the restore disk prompts

Gerry

[wayner]

Yes, I ended up having to do that. The weird thing is that you need the Vista drivers, none of the others will work.

But with one of my PCs at the end of the restore I would get the BSOD. This happened three times and I could never figure out why it happened. I was trying to change my system disk from a 60GB SSD to a 100GB SSD but I could never get past the blue screen. I used a Unix based LiveCd tool called Clonezilla instead - it works well and it lets you clone a disk to a larger size disk which I was able to do by plugging in my "new" disk as an external hard drive.