Hi guys
I am trying to install windows server 2012 on to an old IBM X3655 (7985-4AM) server I just brought however I can not seem to get anywhere with it. The server came with VMware installed on it, I cleaned the two 73.4 Gig SAS drives put them into a raid 1 and the tried to install windows, no luck. I have tried basically every way of installing windows I can think of except CD as I don't have a spare disk to burn it to. I have tried to install both windows 7 and 8.1 pro with disks but the system crashes at the animated windows screen after the install files have been loaded.
I have been able to successfully install Unbuntu from a usb and it seems to work completely fine. I have used both Diskpart and the windows 7 usb mounting tool supplied by Microsoft unsuccessfully when trying to install windows.
Thanks for any help.
Not sure, but have you checked the raid controllers battery? It may be that when the system is power cycled the raid is lost and as such the boot will fail
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I checked the raid config and it doesn't appear to be the problem. I'm now getting a boot configuration error from my usb I am trying to install windows from on the server but not on my desktop.
Servers are more finnicky about BIOS updates than workstations. Attempt to update the board firmware/BIOS and see if it'll install. I had to do this on some Dell servers before I could put 2012R2 on those.
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Thank you MrOwl.
You saved me from a lot of stress.
Just looked on the supported operating systems for it and it says it only supports Windows server 2003 and Linux/Unix based OS's even with an update, so I guess that's what I'll be using. Do you know how different 2003 is to 2012? I'm a Uni student just trying to get some relevant experience for a career path leading to Sys/Net admin type job when I leave Uni rather than being completely new and useless.
Load up a virtual machine and put server 2012r2 on there. You'll get 90 days before it'll force activation, and once it gets there you can just reinstall and get another 90 days. You can download VMWare player for free:
https://www.vmware.com/products/player
Server 2003 is beyond EOL, that happened last year, so learning it is borderline worthless, and the changes between 2003 and 2008 are pretty big... hell theres a bunch of changes between 2008r2 and 2012r2 aside from GUI, particularly on the way DC's worth with workstations.
Thank you for your help. I'll try it out on my rig and see how far I can get with it, hopefully all goes well.