The Windows Home Server Project - Part 1

I'm not sure why I finally decided to dive into doing my own hardware work, but for some reason I did.  I started buying stuff for my uber-home server but often got confused about what tradeoffs I should make.  I decided to get Windows Home Server up and running on an old computer I have sitting around collecting dust.

I started out with an old Dell Dimension 2200.  I knew it was pretty old and would run into some problems but figured I could make it work.

Since you can't download Windows Home Server, I sent away for the Trial version.  I have a full install but was saving that for my finished product.   It arrived and that was the first problem, the 2200 was so old it only had a CD Reader.

Off to Best Buy I went to buy a DVD reader.  I had a USB one but that won't work AFAIK if you're trying to boot from it.

Once it was installed, I tried again.  I got a deficiency error message about the RAM. I didn't have 512 MB in it so off I went back to Best Buy to buy some more.  SDRAM is old so there wasn't much to choose from, so I ended up with 2 256MB chips which was all I could find at the time.

Tried again and got another deficiency error.  This time it was the hard drive.  So off to cicruit city I went. Bought a Western Digital 250 GB SATA drive.  Problem was I didn't have a SATA adapter.  So I went to Frye's,  the only place I could be sure had the adapter.  All was good but the Western Digital didn't come with a SATA Power cable. Off I went to Frye's again. This time I bought a Hot Swap enclosure which was the best thing I bought in the project.

When I tried to run it again, the SATA wasn't being seen.  Tried to reset the BIOS but that still didn't work.  Frustrated, I just bought a new  IDE drive (another 250 GB). 

Ok, that fixed it.  So the install progressed, slowly,  but pretty well overall. Then I got WHS up and running and the fun started. So Tip #1 is - Make sure you have the minimum system requirements met before embarking upon a project like this - I'm an idiot for trying to think I could work around it.

Fortunately, Apress was kind enough to send me Windows Home Server User's Guide by Andrew Edney .  Although it's a lot different from most computer books I come across, it is excellent to get you up and running and over all the hurdles you may come across.  That's it for now, I have to go off and finish Parts II and III