It’s been a while since I last wrote on this blog and it’s about time I get started again. I am especially inspired after watching the great movie Julia and Julie. So, here goes!
I’m ready to delve in. I’ve been working on a project to deploy Windows Server 2008 and so I’ve been trying to setup a test lab at home. I’m using an HP Pavilion a6863w (NC896AAR#ABA) for the hardware. After installing Windows Server 2008, the unit does not recognize the Realtek RTL8168/8111 Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC in which it gives a Code 10. I’ve plugged in a NETGEAR RangeMax Wireless-N WN111v2 USB WiFi adapter and installed the software downloaded from NETGEAR’s website. However, in mid installation, the installer crashes. It seems to detect the WNIC ok if not using NETGEAR’s wireless manager as it just crashes. Still however, I cannot see any networks. After some more research, I found out that the Wireless LAN Service (a Windows Server 2008 Feature) was not installed. This blocks Windows from natively connecting to WLANs. After the installation of that specific feature, WiFi now works fine. Let’s see if I can get the integrated NIC to work….
Update:
After about 10 mins. of searching, I found on this forum the necessary download from HP’s website. Surprisingly, the drivers on HP website for my exact model using Win7 drivers don’t work (they didn’t have any drivers listed for Windows Vista x64). Now with networking, we are in business. I set up previously another Server 2008 box which is the primary domain controller. Let’s see if we can get these guys to talk to one another….
Update 2:
I thought I was going to try to get these guys to talk, but I realized that my graphics card drivers were not installed. ATI’s installer 10-12_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_enu.exe didn’t want to install. A work around was found by installing the driver manually via Device Manager and telling it to search the ATI directory.
Update 3:
This is not going well, I’m now getting a lot of BSOD including problems for system services. Turns out after removing the ATI driver, the services BSOD disappears but now I’m getting another one for USB Bug Check which occurs if my NETGEAR remains plugged in. Problems, problems, problems. I’m trying now to uninstall the NETGEAR software and try loading only the driver when asked without going through the installation package. Also running a chkdsk to see if something is fishy….
Update 4:
I think I got a virus. It’s trying to load some sort of weird disk image…aiya…I guess I’ll need to go reinstall. Odd thing is when I checked for updates, it said I had no updates…and that was early on right after I installed the OS.
Update 5:
It’s still giving some sort of unknown file system error. But finally narrowed it down to the card reader. I get exactly four of those messages…one for each disk of the card reader which is also viewable in diskpart. Time to reinstall all the drivers again….
Update 6:
It appears to be an issue with the ATI drivers. After installing them, BSOD started happening again. After booting to safe mode and uninstalling them, everything is fine again (not a virus). I think I’ll leave the graphics be as this is meant to be a server and not anything else. I’m heading to bed….
Update 7:
As I’m getting ready to sleep I thought I’d try to get one computer to join the other computer on the domain. The problem is that I forgot the password to the other box which I previously made. So I’ll go ahead and reinstall that box too.
Doing a bit of research about available anti-virus corporate stuffs don’t get free antivirus. Although it seems that Kaspesky does offer a free 30 day trial which is suitable for my purposes. Ok. Now I’m going to bed.