There are two things I detest when installing
servers, creating a boot disk from a DVD and doing a PXE (Preboot
eXecution Environment) install. Burning an .ISO image to a DVD for a
server operating system is always a painful exercise, inevitably
involving problems with the DVD, burning software, or burner. Who needs
that trouble? For my small testbed comprised of only three physical
servers, setting up and configuring PXE on my test network just isn't
worth the amount of time I would have to devote to it.
Therefore, when installing Windows servers to physical hardware (not
virtual installs), I rely on two key tools. One is a high capacity USB
flash drive—we're talking a minimum of 4GB—and the second is Microsoft's
Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. With these tools, I can quickly create
a bootable Server 2012 USB disk. You can, of course, also use this
utility to make a bootable DVD.
The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool is simple to use and has never
failed me, except when I tried to use it with a high-capacity 64GB flash
drive. This tool is the best way I have found to install Server 2012 in
a test or small production environment quickly and without a lot of
hassle.
Acquiring and Install
The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool is a free utility available from Microsoft.
System
requirements for installing include a computer running Windows XP SP2,
Vista, or Windows 7 (32- or 64-bit). A minimum of a Pentium 233 MHz
processor is needed; however, 300 MHz is the recommended minimum.
You'll also need 500MB of free space and either a DVD-R or USB flash
drive with at least 4GB capacity.
You will need an .ISO image of the Windows operating system you want
to install. Microsoft states you can only create an image of Windows 7
purchased from the Microsoft Store. However, after reading an
independent blogger's post on Microsoft's TechNet
about using the tool to create a bootable Server 2012 image, something I
found myself in need of, I decided to give it a shot. Although I
haven't tested it yet, word has it that you can use the utility to make a
bootable Windows 8 disk, too.
Making the Bootable USB
The tool has a GUI with a
wizard that guides you through the process of making your boot disk.
There are four steps to creating the bootable USB: Select the path where
the .ISO file is stored, choose if you are making a bootable DVD or
USB, insert the flash drive, and create the image with a button click.
If you use a flash drive that already has data on it, the utility
will format the flash drive first, deleting that data, so back up any
data you want to retain first. I used NTFS formatting to make a bootable
Sever 2012 disk on a USB flash drive.
Boot Image
The entire installation process took
me only a couple of minutes on a Windows 7 machine. I initially had a
problem creating a boot image on a 64GB flash drive. The utility kept
cancelling the .ISO copy process with a rather vague message about being
unable to copy. I swapped that flash drive out for a 16GB Kingston disk
and had no problems copying the server image.
Remember: To boot off the USB on server hardware, you'll need to
change that server's boot order to recognize the USB drive first. I did
not have the option to boot from USB on an older Dell PowerEdge I had,
but I was able to boot from the USB flash drive on an HP Proliant ML 330
server. For the PowerEdge, since this older server's BIOS does not seem
to support USB boot, I simply launched a fresh install of Sever 2012
from the server's existing desktop.
In considerably under an hour, I had two new
installs of Server 2012 on two physical servers. While the Windows 7
USB/DVD Download Tool may have issues with very large flash drives (and
the problem I had could have been with the drive itself, although I can
read and write data to and from it) it's still a convenient tool. Plus,
it's free. This Microsoft utility easily gets four stars for software
utilities.
TO |Download |
pass:aldidiyan
Jun 5, 2013
how to install windows through fleshdisk (INSATAL WINDOWS LEWAT FLASHDISK)
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