The back plane in my EX495 is shot. I currently have 4 hard drives in the EX495. I am considering purchasing the HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen 8. The one I'm interested in comes without any hard drives in it.

I would like to take the 4 hard drives out of the EX495 and put them in the MicroServer paying attention to the order and where the system drive goes in the system. My thought is when the system is powered on, Windows WHS2011 in the system drive should recognize new hardware and install the appropriate drivers for the new hardware.

Does anyone have any experience doing something like this and is my assumption correct that after WHS2011 installs new drivers, (along with any reboots required), I should be up and running on new hardware?

Thanks,

Chuck

This MIGHT work, but I've got a bad feeling it won't. While I don't have my EX487 or EX490 in front of me, there are some differences between how Windows loads its drivers depending on the I/O controller's mode in the BIOS. Many BIOS (or UEFI interfaces) offer multiple modes for the same controller. On my work-issued laptop, for instance, I can set the mode to IDE, AHCI (default) or RAID. There is a glaring warning about changing the mode after the operating system is installed; it informs you that changing the mode may require the OS to be reinstalled. If you change the mode from IDE to AHCI or back (or RAID), and then try rebooting into Windows, you may get STOP 0x7B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE.

If you go into Device Manager, and find your I/O controller, it will most likely be listed under either "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" or "Storage controllers." On my EX490, which is running Windows Server 2012 R2, the Intel(R) ICH9R/DO/DH SATA AHCI controller shows up under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. On my HP laptop, my Intel(R) Mobile Express Chipset SATA RAID Controller lives under Storage controllers.

If I change the controller mode in the BIOS, then I'll most likely get a BSOD. Microsoft has a Registry hack you can try to get around this, and I've had this work for me, but also not. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/ ... wsignin1.0 (The most recent was on a server I built for a friend--I forgot to check the mode before installing the OS. I changed it after, got the STOP 0x7B, tweaked the Registry and it still didn't work. I just reinstalled the OS because it was a fresh build anyway.)

So, the long and short of it is this...if your EX490/495 is in ATA/IDE mode (probably) and the new server is in AHCI or RAID mode, you will probably be met with a STOP 0x7. Hopefully you can get it working without a fresh installation. Of course, sometimes I prefer a fresh install because it's cleaner. If you're trying to avoid that, hopefully you will find success with Microsoft's fix.

_________________
Matt Sawyer
Owner, Dojo North Software, LLC

HP EX490, 4GB, E5300, 15TB - Server 2012 - Sharing and Streaming
HP EX487, 4GB, E5300, 13TB - Server 2012 Essentials - Backups

Thanks Matt! Great feedback.

Chuck