Welcome to Brendon Davis

WHS RTM SATA Driver Issue

Autor brendon | 17.12.2007 | Category HomeServer, TechStuff

Over the weekend I took the time to install the released version of Home Server. As this is the final release of WHS I decided to shuffle my disks around. In previous builds I was too lazy to repeatedly load the SATA drivers with each beta release and so I used an IDE disk for the system partition. This time I went to the effort of locating the SATA drivers for my motherboard so I could use my nice big (400GB 7200RPM 12MB Cache SATA II) disk for the system drive.

I load the SATA drivers from a USB key, put the CD key in, configured the regional settings and let it copy the files and reboot. At the first boot I received the message STOP: 0x0000007B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. Oops, you need to set the BIOS to boot off the SATA hard drive. Correcting this, the Windows install loads but cannot find the SATA drivers; an error 14 stating that $WIN_NT$.~LS\$OEM$\Win2003\SATADRV.sys is not available. Long story short, 12 install attempts later I find that the SATA drivers are copied to the wrong folder by the WHS installer. :-0

To fix the install and load WHS correctly I did the install as normal but when it booted to the 2003 installer, I first booted from a VISTA Install DVD, loaded the SATA drivers again and used the Repair option with a command prompt to create the necessary folder and copy the files into the correct location. I will do more testing with this to find an easy work around, until then I have included the basic steps in this article to work around the problem. The Microsoft WHS forums do not have an official response from the design team yet that I could see.

For the work around steps,

WHS Ports

Autor brendon | 16.12.2007 | Category HomeServer, TechStuff

Being a Comms and Security guy, I like to know (with computers) who is talking to who and how they are talking; commonly referred to as IP addresses and Ports. While reading the WHS Home Networking Technical Brief I noticed a whole list of ports. Rather than have to search through the document next time something breaks (Come on, I’m being realistic here) I thought I would record them in one convenient location.

More Neat WHS Add-ins

Autor brendon | 07.12.2007 | Category HomeServer, TechStuff

Practicly Networked has reviewed three neat WHS Add-ins and provided links to several others. Save repeating the same information, head over and check them out.

• PhotoSync
• Whiist Web Site Management
• AutoExit 2008
• Jungle Disk
• Community Feeds for Windows Home Server
• Client Info
• DHCP for Windows Home Server
• LobsterTunes
• Remote Notification
• Program Launcher

Customise Your WHS Family Pictures

Autor brendon | 06.12.2007 | Category HomeServer, TechStuff

After looking at Microsoft’s view of how familes should interact for so many months, I decided to customise my WHS pages to be a little more personal. Anyone that is handy with Paint.NET or even Microsoft Paint can change the pictures over and have them look quite nice.

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*Update 16/12/07 : While reading through the WHS Remote Access Technical Brief, Page 17 provides similar instructions for changing the same thing. Of course, I figured it all out on my own.

Read on for the instructions…