Proud Programmers Blog

The last week my Windows Home Server got sick, and I started to receive dozens of error messages in the event log, and the WHS backup wouldn’t finish at all. In fact it crashed the server completely. This is not a good situation since I also run my Domino server on VMware-Server at the same box….

So, the event log was full of these …

Other messages were;

• The shadow copies of volume C:\fs\H were aborted because of an IO failure on volume C:\fs\H.
• Faulting application whsbackup.exe, version 6.0.2423.0, faulting module whsbackup.exe, version 6.0.2423.0, fault address 0x00063604.
• Client Backup server failed at d:\wssg_src\whs_pp3\qhs\src\backup\util\diskfile.cpp(455)
• The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.
• The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume C:\fs\H.
  

Obviously something was wrong.

… and when I search about “iaStor” it quickly turns out that this is the Intel Matrix Storage Manager and that it is an very important part of your OS installation. Searching also reveals that lots of people experience problems with iaStor, and often you don’t find exact answers. Answers like “try to reinstall” always makes me shiver ….

Lots of posts also suggested that I should actually do a chkdsk as one of the error messages also suggests. A chkdsk /r was issued, but it didn’t help at all. It wasn’t until I found a post with these lines …

net stop pdl

net stop whsbackup

chkdsk D: /x /r 

chkdsk C: /x /r

for /d %%1 in (C:\fs\*) do start chkdsk /x /r %%1

First of all, it didn’t take down the WHS completely, so my VMware server kept running. Secondly it properly stopped the WHS’s pdl and whsbackup services (persistent drive letter service, and the backup service repectivly) properly. Third and most important, it issued a chkdsk on each of the file systems in WHS. This step took approx 36 hours on my system, but when it was finished, and after a reboot, my system was all good again!

Thanks to the site We Got Served for a good forum – and thanks to all persistent individuals out there that keep on analyzing, working, sweating, swearing and fixing problems out there.