An EX495 server that won't fully boot?

[milesrf]

HP MediaSmart Server EX495

used for backups, moving files from one computer to another. and nothing else so far

product FL705AA#ABA

Turning it on starts the boot process, but it appears to hang at the point where all three light on the bottom of the front are aqua, two at the left solid and the right one blinking.

The individual disk lights no longer come on.

Trying to reach through the HP MediaSmart ethernet connection can no longer find it.

Trying an alternate ethernet cable or a different router ethernet port does not give different results.

Trying the ethernet cable, but to a laptop instead of the server, gives results indicating that the cable and the router ethernet ports are still working.

Disconnecting the ethernet cable from the server turns off the center light at the bottom of the front.

I found the manuals; they do not mention this combination of the lights.

The manuals mantion that none of the other ports on the back can be used in place of the ethernet port.

However, the manuals do not mention what appears to be a port on the front, to the right of the three lights.

The manuals mention that the lights can be breathing - but never describe just what breathing means.

The manuals should, but don't, mention the maximum size for the SATA hard drives; I guessed 2 TB each, so that's what I installed when it needed more hard drives.

The web pages I found for the EX495 do not mention any way to ask HP to come repair it, or even whether it's still possible.

However, they do offer a way to check on a repair order AFTER you create one.

This leaves me with no access to my backups for the last few years, and no reasonable way to store any more backups.

If I ever had a Server Recovery DVD for the EX495, I lost it years ago.

I found the item in the manuals describing how to reset the EX495 to its original state, but this deletes all the backups already stored.  I do not consider this suitable for my current situation, since I need to recover a few items from the older backups at least as much as I need new backups.

I looked at HP's listings for newer disk servers.  None of them appear to be able to handle SATA drives larger than 1 TB,

so none of them look suitable for inspecting the contents of the hard drives now in my EX495.

P.S. This thread has been moved from General to Network Attached Storage (NAS) (Small and Medium Business).  - HP Forum Moderator