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I have an old HP Data Vault X510 with the ageing Windows Home Server (Server 2003). Yesterday I decided to figure out how to install 2012 R2 on it. Unfortunately everything I could find with Google suggested opening the machine up and connecting custom cables to undocumented pin headers - hardly ideal!
Fortunately I succeeded in installing 2012 R2 without any hardware modifications, so I figure that there's no harm in sharing :)
You will need:
- An HP Data Vault (although this should also work with a MediaSmart Server)
- A USB drive, preferably with an activity LED
- A hard drive to install to (this will be wiped)
- The Server 2012 R2 ISO (I used Essentials)
- A desktop PC for some prep work
- I highly recommend upgrading to 4 GB of RAM before beginning.
Next, grab the unattend file. This is where the "magic" happens. Open up the file with a text editor and find the following two lines near the bottom: "YOUR PRODUCT KEY HERE" and "YOUR PASSWORD HERE". Enter your Windows product key and pick a password for the Administrator user.
That file is configured to create a 60 GB Windows partition and to fill the rest of the disk with a "storage" partition. You can modify these if you wish, although apparently the Windows partition must be smaller than 2 TB or the Data Vault won't boot from it (I haven't tested this myself, it's just what I've heard) [Edit: I installed to a 6 TB drive and only the first 2 TB was accessible despite the 60 GB Windows partition].
When you've finished customising the file, rename it to Autounattend.xml and copy it to the root of your USB drive.
The next thing that you need to do is power down your desktop and connect the target hard drive. Boot back up, open Disk Management, and delete all partitions on the drive. This will stop the Data Vault from attempting to boot from it.
Once that's done, power down, and move the drive into bay 1 of the Data Vault. Remove any other drives; you don't want to format them by accident! Connect the USB drive to the bottom port on the back of the machine (apparently it won't boot from any other port) and power on*. With any luck, after a few seconds you'll see the USB drive's activity light start to run. Sit back and relax; the installation takes about 20 minutes (and the USB light won't run for the entire 20).
After 20 minutes, try pinging the machine. If it doesn't respond then try waiting a little longer. It it's working, great! Connect using Remote Desktop and log into the Administrator account. You can safely eject the USB drive at this point.
When working through Essentials' initial setup, you'll be told that the process will take about 30 minutes. This is not an exaggeration and the system may not respond to ping/RDP during this time. Don't panic :)
* Apparently with some models of MediaSmart Server you'll need a keyboard connected, will need to mash F12, and will then need to use the down arrow and Enter to select the invisible "USB-CDROM" option. Unfortunately I don't know how many times you need to press the down arrow as this wasn't a problem with my X510.
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Hopefully that helps someone! Or if not, at least I have a "backup" of my process now :)
