Exchange Server 2007 Installation Marathon Day 1 - Windows Server 2003, AD and IIS

* Hardware Platform:
Core 2 Duo E6320 CPU,
Intel P965 Motherboard,
1GB DDRII 667 RAM,
250GB SATAII HDD,
Intergraded LAN/VGA

* Software Environment:
Windows XP Pro x64 (Host Operating Sytem)
VMWare Server 1.0.2
Windows Server 2003 x64 R2 (Guest Operating system)
Exchange Server 2007


Step 1 - AD, IIS installation

Computer Name: Server01
Domain Name: CONTOSO (just as same as in MSCE training course)
IP Address: xxx.xxx.xxx.8/24
Default Gateway: xxx.xxx.xxx.2 (which is controlled by VMWare to rout your network traffic to internet.)
Primary DNS Server: xxx.xxx.xxx.8 (Which is WinServer 2003, but firstly it isn't been configured. To setting this IP as primary DNS is to avoid error messenge during installing Exchange 2007)
Secondary DNS Server: xxx.xxx.xxx.2 (which is the real one)

After you install AD on your server, you need to raise the Domain functional level to "Windows 2000 native"

Step 2 - Exchange 2007 Installation

The instructuction of Exchange 2007 Installation Wizzard is very clear. Only thing I did is just follow it until get it done.

Freaking out!

Be aware using Samsung SATA HDD for your RAID

Last night I was helping my friends building two PCs. Both are using the same hardware parts and configuration:

Intel Core2Duo E6400
Intel Q965OTM Motherboard
2 x 512MB DDRII RAM
2 x 250GB Samsung SATA HDD in RAID1
Branded case and power supply unit

The problem was when we put anything into the case and powered up, it just get stuck on Intel Matrix HDD self testing. But if we unplug hard drives, it can pass and load WINXP installation procedure.

So we were wondering these Samsung hard drives were faulty. With new replacement -- Maxtor 320GB SATAII, new pc was just fine!

But it is not the end. On another PC, the other two hdds just did the same thing. Finally we found if changing the BIOS setup for HDD to normal IDE without connecting anything and shutdown, then reboot with two hdds and make sure they are recognized in BIOS. Now you can finally setup them as RAID and load Windows on.

My friend has some business clients and he just noticed there were several issues about Samsung hard drives in the past. Most of problems were losting RAID volume or couldn't boot up computer.

How nerdy are you?

After reading how to corrently configure Terminal Service the whole morning, I got this link and find myself is a



Can't believe it. I think I should be nerdier when I was in uni, since at that time I installed 5 different OSs on my first PC.