# ssh morsepower.net -p <redacted> Connection refused
Hmm.
Ok, don’t panic. The server has been turned off and on several times, maybe I just got caught in a bad state. Obviously I can’t shut it down from the network, so I’ve got no choice but to pound the Reset button. Should be fine. Obviously the thing is idle.
# ssh morsepower.net -p <redacted> Connection failed: No route to host
Hmm.
Ok, don’t panic. Must be the router. Port forwarding probably got screwy. Let’s just check 192.168.1.1 and…nope, it’s not the router. OK, this headless server concept only works if the server can actually be access on the damned network. Time to get over myself and plug a physical freaking monitor and keyboard into the thing. Fancy electronics sitting on a decrepit old wooden workbench. I like the juxtaposition there. Anyhow let’s take a look-see.
…
Nothing? No video output?
HMM.
Don’t panic. Pound the Reset again. I need to see what is going on when it boots u-why is it rebooting into the BIOS setup screen?! What’s the hard disk boot priority set to?
SATA 1: - SATA 2: - SATA 3: - SATA 4: -
SHIT ASS FUCK.
Ok, don’t panic. There are multiple possible points of failure. I might not have lost everything. Let’s pop the hard drive out, shove it into an enclosure, hook it up to my PC and see what Linux can tell me.
#ls /dev/sde* /dev/sde #fdisk -l /dev/sde No partitions found #testdisk /dev/sde Cannot access /dev/sde
OK ACTUALLY DO PANIC.
You know when they tell you not to just turn off a computer without gracefully shutting it down? Yeah, they aren’t joking. Of course, out of pure frustration I’ve done this several times to this stupid server because of its propensity to refuse to shut down like a normal computer. But it always came back swinging. Not this time, though. Now it’s dead. It’s really dead. This was a solid state drive, so I don’t know if there’s any coming back from this.
Now I’m faced with the same choice I had when this happened a few short months ago. Do I rebuild my blog from scratch, again? Or do I just swallow my pride and get a wordpress.com account and let them do it. Now repeat that question across all the potential use cases for this device. Blog, game server, backup file host, IoT base station, calendar server. Do it myself, or let somebody do it for me? It would be so much easier, wouldn’t it? Just buy my way out of the problem, with my money or access to my data.
No. Fuck that. I’m an engineer. I make thing. I solve problems. I don’t pay people to do it for me. I’ll learn from this. I’ll get better.
Hell, the replacement hard drive is on Prime. I won’t even have to wait very long.