Installing The Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Essentials Operating System - Lenovo ThinkServer RD550 Operating System Installation Manual

Installing the Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Essentials operating
system
This topic provides instructions on how to install the Windows Server 2012 Essentials operating system.
Note: Before installing this operating system, connect your server to the network.
To install the Windows Server 2012 Essentials operating system, do the following:
1. Insert the operating system installation disc into the optical drive that you have set as the first startup
device. Then, start the server from the optical drive.
2. When the message Press any key to boot from CD or DVD... is displayed, press any key. If the message
Windows Setup [EMS Enabled] is displayed, press Enter. Wait several minutes for the system to load
the files.
3. When the Windows Server 2012 window is displayed, configure the language and other options as you
need, and then click Next.
4. Click Install now.
5. Type your product key and then click Next. The product key information is available on the Microsoft
Certificate of Authenticity label or product packaging.
6. Read the license terms and select I accept the license terms. Then, click Next.
7. Select the type of installation as you need. The following steps are based on the scenario that Custom:
Install Windows only (Advanced) is selected in this step.
8. In the "Where do you want to install Windows?" window, depending on the SATA configuration on
your server, do one of the following:
• If your SATA configuration is set as RAID (both onboard SATA software RAID and RAID card):
do the following:
a. Connect the USB storage device that contains the driver to your server and click Load Driver.
b. Click Browse to locate the required driver and then click OK.
c. In the "Select the driver to be installed" window, select Hide drivers that are not compatible
with hardware on this computer, select the driver that you want to install, and then click Next
to install the driver.
• If your SATA configuration is set as IDE: go to step 9.
• If your SATA configuration is set as AHCI: go to step 9. Be sure to install the AHCI driver after the
operating system installation is completed, see "Installing the driver for the SATA AHCI" on page 35.
9. In the "Where do you want to install Windows?" window, click Drive options (advanced). Then, click
New.
10. Type the amount of space (in MB), and then click Apply.
11. In the Windows Setup window, click OK.
12. Ensure that the drive partition is correct, and then click Next. The installation begins.
Notes:
• Your server restarts several times during the installation.
• If the message displays as "Errors occurred during installation", you need to manually install the
Ethernet driver. To install the driver, do the following:
a. Download the driver for an Ethernet card from the Lenovo Web site. If the driver is a compressed
file, unzip it to a folder. The most up-to-date device drivers for various server models are always
available for download on the Lenovo Web site at:
http://www.lenovo.com/drivers
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ThinkServer RD550 and RD650 Operating System Installation Guide