Installing Windows Server 2008 on a Brand New Machine having a Blank Hard Drive.

Here I am going to show how to install Windows Server 2008 on a machine which is totally new with a new blank hard drive without any partitions.

Before I start with the installation process I will quickly review the system requirements to install Windows Server 2008 as recommended by Microsoft.

Processor

Note: An Intel Itanium 2 processor is required for Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems

Memory

Available Disk Space

Note: Computers with more than 16GB of RAM will require more disk space for paging, hibernation, and dump files

Drive

Display and Peripherals

Now we can start with the installation process...

This screen will disappear within few seconds and the second screen will appear
 Here you have to select the appropriate language, time and currency format as per your requirement and click NEXT.

After clicking NEXT you will find the screen with the button INSTALL NOW.
 The button INSTALL NOW will lead you to step one of the Windows Server 2008 installation.

After clicking on install now, there will be a screen on which we have to select the appropriate version of Windows Server 2008 as per our organization needs.
  Here I have selected Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (Full Installation)

On this page, you will also able to see the architecture of the Windows Server and whether it is an x86 architecture or x64.

After clicking next ,there will be a screen which contains the product licence.
  Now we have to check "I Accept the license terms"and hit "NEXT"
The next screen asks which type of installation do you want?, "Upgrade" OR "Custom".

Here in the screen shot, you will able to see the "upgrade" option is grayed out as we are installing a new version of Windows and we don't have any other operating systems on our hard drive. So we need to select "Custom".

After selecting "Custom", the next screen will appear as below.
 This screen shows the details about how many hard drives are attached to your computer, their unallocated space, total disk space and free space.

If no hard drives are displayed, you may need to load drivers from the server manufacturer.  To do this click "Drive Options (advanced)" and then click Load driver and supply the driver files for your mass storage device.
 On this screen you can perform all the advanced activities like creating the partition, formatting etc.

Here I am having a hard drive with size 80 GB which is totally unallocated.  I need to use the whole drive as a system drive so I will just simply click NEXT.

It will automatically allocate all the space and format the drive and proceed further.
At this stage we have to wait.  The amount of time will vary according to the server hardware. The installer will perform the following activities during this stage.
Once all the five mentioned steps are completed the system will restart automatically and the following screen will appear.
 This is the first time we are logging on to the Windows Server, so by default it asks to change the password.

Click on "OK" and enter the new password for the account "Administrator" which is recommended to be an alpha numeric password.
After changing the password, click on the blue arrow which will lead you to your desktop screen.  As it is the first time this user has logged on, it will take a while to create the users profile.

Here is the desktop for windows server 2008, and now we are completed with the installation.
 A screen will automatically pops-up on which we can do the initial configuration tasks like, setting time zone, network configuration etc, etc.
 
Today we have learned how to install Windows Server 2008 on a blank hard drive.  The steps are very easy, so to experience it, don't wait, just do it.

Download the trial version from http://www.microsoft.com