Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Plumbersmate/archive/2020/01/28/enter-the-rack-mounted-server.aspx
A generous contact has loaned me a rack mounted server to turn into a Windows Hyper-V host.
I don't have a rack to mount the machine in so have made use of a glass and chrome TV stand instead.
Screams like banshees for a couple of minutes when switched on but pretty quiet the rest of the time.
The machine seemed to be running Linux (like I’d know) so I decided to burn the installation software onto a DVD and boot off that. Searching around, I found the sold writeable DVD in the house – a lovely, unused 4.8GB disk. Sadly, the Windows server ISO was over 6Gb so wasn’t going to fit. This was when I learnt how many different capacities of 12cm DVD disks there are.
- Single-sided, single layer – 4.7GB (your standard, off-the-shelf product)
- Single-sided, double layer – 8.54GB
- Double-sided, single layer – 9.4GB
- Double-sided, double layer – 17.08GB
Giving up on that, I bought a ridiculously cheap pack of 16GB USB sticks.
Rufus can write the ISO to a USB stick and make the whole thing bootable. Unfortunately, not always reliably:
To ensure the ISO I was using was intact, I decided to re-download it.
This time, though, I noticed an “Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016” option and used that instead.
Rufus worked this time and the server installation completed
but I now seem to have installed the Core version – no graphical applications; just Notepad.exe and the command line.
This going to be interesting.
Time to dust off the Powershell.