I have a Dell poweredge 2950 that was running SBS2003. I wanted to upgrade it and use it as a file server. I install 2 150gb drives (for OS) and two 600 GB drives (for data). RAID configuration went fine. Both VDs were initialized and online however when I tried to install Windows Server 2012 Essentails, it hangs at the blue windows icon. I've tried disabling one of the NICs, assigning a stactic ip vs dhcp, reconfiguring the RAID array - I even tried running setup from SafeMode w/networking - which worked fine but on the reboot, it hung again on the windows icon. I left it on over the weekend and on Monday morning - it was still hanging.
I read a google post that said upgrading the xeon 5050 processors to 5060's fixed their problem. I found a matched set on Ebay for $20 so i ordered them. But just in case that doesn't work - has anyone...