At work I’m installing Windows 2008 server onto a brand new PC which has taken a couple of hours figuring out how to get started. The PC was ordered without an operating system, but it did have Vista installed (as a trial) which Windows 2008 didn’t like trying to overwrite first time I tried.
Using Windows 2008′s setup – when asked “where do you want to install Windows?” I deleted the existing partition ’0′ (where Vista was installed), created a new partition and then formatted it (all via the setup program) which didn’t seem to take the Installer very long to complete. Then I waited for setup to copy the files (very quick) and expand files – but it just sat on 0% for eons and then it restarted the PC with the error
Bootmgr is missing
Press ctrl-alt-del to restart.
So I booted off the setup CD again, and this time chose Repair (underneath “What to know before installing Windows”). In the System Recovery Options window I selected Command Prompt and then took a look at the C: drive. It looked like the drive still had Vista files in place! So I formatted the C: drive using the command prompt (and this time it took a lot longer to complete), then ran setup again. This time the expanding files took a couple of minutes but it completed. Total installation time was just 7 minutes!
Although I now suspect somehow Windows has only installed server core installation so my first impressions of Windows 2008 (setup) are mixed.
| In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt |
2 Comments
There is definitely a bug in Windows 2008 server setup (disc 4454 of MSDN – May 2008).
My successful Windows 2008 Server installation (albeit the Core installation) worked fine. Trying to install Server on top (overwriting) that version just causes the same problem as when Vista was on the hard drive. So looks like I have to format the drive again…
Last update: It turned out to be my setup disc. I downloaded a new ISO from MSDN and it worked first time. Phew!