Install Windows onto secondary slave drive ?

Dolby

Dolby

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If you want to find out why I'm asking this - the story is at the end

Basically if you have two drives in a PC (one with the OS and another clean & formatted) - is it possible to install Windows onto the clean drive, and then remove and put in another computer (HP microserver)? I cannot for the life of me get Windows to install while in the HP microserver ...


** Why I'm asking >>> .... the HP Gen 8 Microserver that I've been using for ages was in the lounge. I decided to move it to the study and, while there, reset the Windows 10 to have it all clean and fresh! Reset was perfect until it asked for a reboot after some update.

Since then, I've got numerous errors and it won't boot up - something with PXE and another with non bootable etc . I tried for hours (not really knowing what I was doing) in BIOS and gave up. Pulled the drive out and placed it in another computer. Used Disk Management and formatted / made it visible. Now I'm trying to use it as a primary back in the HP...
 
Tried that once could not get the second drive to boot seems windows writes a bootloader or something for the specific hardware it's installed on.
 
I've asked someone that lives near me and knows this works, to rather help with my HP and I'll get them a bottle of whiskey. This is too complex for me ;)
 
It won't work.

My HP boots by default from the USB ports. So maybe try installing / reinstalling from a USB stick with just the one clean drive in the machine.
 
Hoping too ;)

It's probably a simple setting I'm overlooking. The older HPs were closer to a PC when setting up - while these Gen8s seem closer to a server.
 
You can but you need to mark the drive as bootable. This needs to be done on a binary level - you just need to know if you need to make it a legacy MBR or GPT.

In Windows you can perform this with diskpart, in debian gparted is polular. Youtube how to use either tool and you should be okay :)
 
Alternatively if you dont want to mess with command line stuff, just unplug the primary hardrive of the host machine and plug in the HP hard drive and do the Windows install until the first reboot - the installer will mark the drive as bootable for you :)

Then simply pop the hardrive into the HP and you should be okay
 
Yes you can. Selecting the partition in windows custom install will take care of everything. The problem with this route however is that windows installs hardware specific drivers which can clash when you move it to another machine. There are ways to make a generic install and then continue on the destination machine but I suspect this is part of the problem you are having.
 
Doesn't the hp microserver have raid arrays?

PXE means it's trying to boot from the network. If the bios sees the drive and it's listed as first boot device its failing to mount.

Anyway for your install trick. Yes it can be done but i'd just remove my actual drive for safety. I wacked my own partition doing that before.
 
Last edited:
Everything that everyone is saying sounds far too technical for me ;) I don't even know what a RAID array or a GPT is. And I wouldn't mind booting from a NIC just once to install, if I knew how.

Below, the first screen is what I see - supposed to be mentioning redundant ROM?

The next is the BIOS - but no where in it can I see the HDD.

hp.jpg
 
Does your hp server look like this?

gen8server2.png
 
Are there more than one drive in yours?

If so

Which drive are you planning on reloading in another pc?
 
The first pic shows that uServer works in RAID mode and RAID array is not initialized.
So I guess you need to initialize RAID first [F5]. If you have a single drive then disable RAID option ROM (switch to AHCI mode) and then install Windowze.

I don't know this device, but I am sure I can help if you bring it to me. Will no charge.
 
sajunky said:
The first pic shows that uServer works in RAID mode and RAID array is not initialized.
So I guess you need to initialize RAID first [F5]. If you have a single drive then disable RAID option ROM (switch to AHCI mode) and then install Windowze.

I don't know this device, but I am sure I can help if you bring it to me. Will no charge.
Click to expand...

I agree. If the RAID was configured before rather take it to a person who knows how to set up the arrays. For the OP it's also a good thing to check out what RAID is so you can see why it won't simply mount as a drive in a windows installation if not configured.

Don't disable RAID cause it's actually there for redundancy purposes in case a drive fails.

Best guess if all four bays has a drive in it it's probably best as RAID 10:

storage_raid_10_desktop.png


If only 2 bays then it's RAID 1 or a mirror of each other.
 
An update :

I couldn't get it right and didn't understand all these terms, so a friend suggested we load Ubunto via USB - which worked. As it picked up the HDD, I could install Windows 7 > upgrade to Windows 10 and everything appears to be working!
 
Dolby said:
An update :

I couldn't get it right and didn't understand all these terms, so a friend suggested we load Ubunto via USB - which worked. As it picked up the HDD, I could install Windows 7 > upgrade to Windows 10 and everything appears to be working!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have had cases when I needed ubuntu to install linux, this is a new use case for me though.
Bravo.
 
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