A few days ago my main machine running Windows XP died on me. Thankfully I bought a small HP box with Windows Home Server on it to backup all my home computers and also to use as a media server. I am glad I did this.

I decided to get the Windows Home Server because I was afraid I didn't have any real backup solution for all of my computers at home. There are 3 workstations, all running Windows XP, a MAC workstation and three laptops running Windows Vista, Windows XP and one is a MAC.

Up until a few months ago I was doing manual backups, saving them to a shared folder located in one of the workstations. It was time consuming and painful... and then I discovered Windows Home Server. This neat little server allows me to do full backups of all my computers, and it also provides a central location to store all the photographs, video and music which used to be stored across all of the other computers before.

So everything was fine until a few days ago, my main machine, which I use for software development didn't want to start again after I added some software and applied some updates. Needless to say, when I realised the computer wasn't going to start I just stared at it for a very long time, I was a little shocked since the last time I had a similar problem was a very long time ago.

So after trying the usual stuff, booting from a Windows XP cd, doing the repair option, executing chkdks, fixboot and fixmbr multiple times without success, I decided to just restore my computer using a backup from a night before using the Windows Home Server.

I downloaded the Home Server restore cd files and then burned a blank cd with the contents of it. Then I went to boot from this cd and I was happy to see the Windows Vista like background showing me all of the network and hard drive drivers it found. This step is very important, if do not see any drivers for your network card, make sure you get them before trying to restore as you need to connect to the Home Server in your network to do this. If you don't have the network drivers, you can get them from your Home Server, just go to another computer with access to the Home Server, insert a USB drive and open one of the backups from the Home Server console, it needs to be one of the backups that belong to the computer you are restoring, once you open the backup file, you'll see a folder that has all the drivers in it. copy them to your USB drive and then go back to the computer being restored and upload these drivers. There is an option to search for drivers in a USB drive in the restore wizard, you won't miss it.

I did see the network drivers and all of my hard drives in this page so I just continued to the next step, the wizard asked me for the Home Server password, I typed it and then clicked on the next button. This is where I then realized that I should have tested the restoring option before, when all my computers where up and running to avoid surprises such as the one I got...well too late for that. The problem I encountered is  the reason I am writing this blog and I hope someone with the same problem runs across this blog and finds the solution.

After I entered the Home Server password I received the following message:

"An unknown network error has occured during PC Restore...Please verify that your network conntection is active and that your Windows Home Server is powered on."

Yikes! the first thing I did after that was restart my computer, boot from the cd and do it all over again... nothing, same error. I know that the connection existed since the wizard was able to see the home server, it showed me the name of it.

I tried restarting the Home Server, the computer to be restored, etc... no luck. Then, after searching for about an hour... I came across this post that gave me the answer...

"Try disconnecting the network from the Internet and trying again; it's name resolution that's the problem."

Yes, I did that and it worked flawlessly, the restore took approximately two hours and then I was able to log on to Windows and all of my files and programs where there, like nothing had happened. The problem seems to be the way some ISPs and/or routers are configured, it causes a problem with the name resolution.

Lesson learned, if you are having the same problem and are receiving this error:

"An unknown network error has occured during PC Restore...Please verify that your network connection is active and that your Windows Home Server is powered on."

Make sure your Home Server and affected computer can communicate, they need to be connected to the same switch, hub, etc... however, make sure that there is no connection to your cable modem or any other internet service, otherwise you might see this error and it will prevent you from restoring your PC.

Good luck!