movedor Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 (edited) I know most people already figured this out in one way or another, and many have moved to 2012 server, but it might be still be useful to people sticking to WHS 2011 like me. Here are the steps I used to install WHS 2011 on my old HP EX470 with 50GB SSD. These steps also worked to install WHS 2011 on my new HP Microserver Gen8 with 60GB SSD in the ODD SATA in RAID mode. Enjoy. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. prepare storage 1a. delete all partitions from the target HD to use for installing WHS 2011 1b. prepare usb flash drive with cfg.ini file and custom drivers. Put all custom drivers in the \drivers folder in the USB flash drive. You will need at very minimum drivers for the storage in case you have the boot drive in a RAID. If you got drivers in form of .zip or self-expanding .exe you need to store the extracted the files in the flash drive, Windows setup will not expand them for you. Cfg.ini file content below. Note it points custom drivers to C:\drives assumes the USB flash drive will show up as C: drive during setup execution. I verified this works on Microserver Gen8 only. [WinPE] InstallSKU=SERVERHOMEPREMIUM WindowsPartitionSize=MAX CheckReqs=0 ConfigDisk=1 Processed=false Drivers=C:\Drivers [InitialConfiguration] AcceptEula=true ServerName=HPSERVER PlainTextPassword=Password1 PasswordHint=Password Hint Settings=None Language=en-US Locale=en-US Country=US Keyboard=00000409 2. prepare a spare desktop PC or laptop for the first stage of install 2a. disconnect all HD from the target desktop PC and install the WHS hard drive 2b. insert WHS 2011 install disk in the desktop PC CDROM drive 2c. insert usb flash drive 3. perform first stage of setup 3a. power on desktop PC and let CDROM start install 3b. shutdown desktop PC when first reboot happens. Pay attention to this because if you don't, and you let setup continue on the same machine after reboot it will use HAL for that hardware and you will not be able to use the HD to boot in the target server. 4. complete setup on target server 4a. install HD in the server 4b. power on server wait about 30 mins to complete setup (this might take longer on slower hardware) Once setup is done it still have other tasks to complete, but all that can be done thru remote desktop. 5. from desktop PC start remote desktop session to server to install updates and other config. Edited December 31, 2013 by movedor 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikon Posted January 1, 2014 Share Posted January 1, 2014 Thanks for this; it's good to repeat it once in a while. I like the way you prepared like a cooking recipe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awraynor Posted January 1, 2014 Share Posted January 1, 2014 Putting an SSD in for my OS was the best thing I've ever done for my server. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe_Miner Posted January 1, 2014 Share Posted January 1, 2014 (edited) Great writeup Movedor +1 -- thanks for sharing -- I hope to give it a try in the future.................. Just to complete the circle we have at least two other threads on unattended install: Installing WHS2011 on a Small SSD in a MicroServer!! Installing WHS2011 on a 60GB SSD!! Edited January 1, 2014 by Joe_Miner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
movedor Posted January 2, 2014 Author Share Posted January 2, 2014 Odd, I did use forum search trying to find if this was already there before and nothing came up. Is the forum search broken? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schoondoggy Posted January 2, 2014 Share Posted January 2, 2014 the forum search is not great. I generally do a google search and include 'homeservershow'. that seems to be the best way to search the site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikon Posted January 2, 2014 Share Posted January 2, 2014 the forum search is not great. I generally do a google search and include 'homeservershow'. that seems to be the best way to search the site. Sad, but oh so true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drashna Jaelre Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 yeah, unfortunately, Invision Power does a lot of things right with their package. Search is not one of them. But yeah, a google or bing search with "site:homeservershow.com" in it usually does the trick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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