We had to start off with a clean install and a few items to work on. We put the basic hardware together to make a clean server install.

The Skeleton Crew:

• Lian Li – PC80
• ASUS P5Q WS
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Quad-Core Processor 2.66 GHz
• NVidia 7200 GS
• (2x) 2GB G-Skill DDR2-800 Ram
• Sata/Raid Card PCI-X
• (2x) Seagate 250 GB Slim
• (8x) 1 TB Drives
• (1x) Back Plane
• Tower Raid 8 Slots

 

After installing just the backplane and main hard drives we started up the machine. After a few tries nothing came on the screen but everything was working. We switched graphics cards from other machines, and tried it multiple times but something wasn’t working. Turns out we forgot to plug in the PCI-Express power cable into the motherboard so thats why nothing was coming out into the screen, after finishing that little problem we proceeded with the install which went smoothly.

After the basic install was complete I proceeded to install the mobo drivers, then connected to the internet for the rest. Basic rule of thumb with us, not to install drivers from the CD but to perform a Windows Update with the optional items checked so that you can get the latest versions of the drivers compatible with the OS. And this the point we have reached, I tried using the tower raid with eSata connections on the mother board but that didn’t work out very well, requests to those hard drives kept timing out, so I have to take a different route. Nothing feels better then working on a clean installation.