Prepare Bootable EJP Recovery USB Drive

Goals

Access the Windows Installer and Repair Tools for Install/Repair/Recovery

One of the requirements for the prison is that we cannot deliver any external media, such as CD's or flash drives. This complicates the recovery scenarios because we can't just boot from a CD/DVD to initiate a Windows full system restore or to use the repair tools. Further, Since we need special drivers for the RAID controller, the repair tools wouldn't even be able to see the Hard drives unless we could load the drivers from another Disk.

One way we can work around the 'no media' requirement and still have the tools available, with the drivers, is to store the windows installer and RAID drivers on some kind of alternative storage inside the server. The server's Motherboard actually has both an internal USB port and an internal SD card.

Either of these would work, but USB has some attractive features:

• The USB port is much easier to access
• USB drives don't require a card reader, so you can plug it in on any computer to stage or inspect the contents. The SD card reader is behind an air baffle and requires some extra agility to insert

Access the HP RAID Drivers is we need to do a recovery

• Download HP ProLiant Smart Array Embedded SATA RAID Controller Driver for Windows 2003/2008 x64 Editions
• Package name cp018777.exe
• Version 6.18.0.64 (A) (7 Dec 2012)
• We are interested in the contents of the self-extracting executable package, so just run it, and tell it to extract someplace convenient

Install the EJPRECOVERY USB Drive inside the server

The server chassis will be locked to protect access to the flash drive (as well as the other components)

Configure the Boot Order on the Server

With the USB drive inserted, we wouldn't want to boot from that every time, so we want to configure the BIOS settings as follows:

• Boot in this order CD/DVD, C:, USB Drivekeys
• Configure USB boot in this order Internal DriveKeys, External DriveKeys

This also protects us from accidentally booting the server from random flash drives that a user may have left plugged in. When you want to boot from USB, you will press F11 at the prompt (After the RAID POST), to choose USB Drivekey. When you select USB, it will always boot from the internal one first.

Hide the EJPRECOVERY drive during regular operation

Once we are done installing everything, we can hide the drive so that users don't go poking around in it

Procedures

Get a good USB drive

• This USB flash drive needs to be higher than average quality because we will depend on it to work for years to come. The conditions in the case could get hostile in terms of case temperatures
• Speed is not important. We only need this for the install and recovery operations, and hopefully not even the latter.
• Of course we don't have a lot of money to spend
• We want a small form factor. There's no room for anything really bulky inside the case, and we don't want to obstruct the cooling fans
• Not too large, becuase we need to be able to use the FAT32 filesystem
• I chose the Kingston Data Treveller SE9 16GB
  • Available locally
  • Reasonable price
  • 5yr warranty
  • Metal case
  • The only negative theme in the online reviews were about not being especially fast, and issues inserting/removing. We're only going to insert this once, and never touch it again

Format/Activate the Drive

• I'm using windows 8, but this part should work on any Windows machine.
• Insert the USB drive
  • Ignore any autorun apps that might start from the drive
• Open a Command prompt as Admministrator
• Start diskpart

diskpart

• List the attached disks to identify the new USB drive
  • In this illustration we can see that the new drive is the 14GB one, and it is called Disk 1
• Select the disk. The remainder of these commands will apply to that disk after running this command

select disk 1

• Wipe the disk

clean

• Create new primary partition

create partition primary

• Set the active bit; This is what tells te computer it is bootable

 active

• Format the drive as FAT32

 format fs=fat32 quick

• Assign the drive so we can see it in explorer

 assign

• Done

exit

Download/Locate the Windows Installer ISO

• You'll have to visit the Micrsoft Volume license page to download
• The file may be called SW_DVD5_Win_MultiPoint_Svr_Prem_2011_64Bit_English_MLF_X17-35077.ISO

Mount the ISO as a DVDROM drive

• Windows 8 has a convenient feature where you can Mount and ISO file directly
• Other tools like Virtual CloneDrive can be used
• The ISO's contents will now look like another DVD in your computer

Rename the USB drive

• Select the USB drive in the Windows Explorer
• Keep your mouse there or press F2 to activate the rename
• Name the drive EJPRECOVERY

Copy everything from the DVD to the USB drive

• Copy everything from the DVD to the USB drive
• The file structure should look the same from the top of both locations
• Now you should be able to boot off this drive to start a Windows Install... but we don't have drivers yet

Copy the RAID controller drivers to the drive

• We want to put them in a location on the drive that is easy to find, and doesn't get mixed up with the windows installer
• Make a Directory at the top of the drive called EJP_SUPPORT_FILES
• Make a directory under that called HP Smart Array B110 Driver
• Copy the contents of the driver package to that location

Create a README.txt

• At the root of the USB drive create a file called README.TXT
• Paste the following into that file:

 IF THIS DRIVE IS VISIBLE DURING REGULAR OPERATION, NOTIFY YOUR ADMINISTRATOR.
 
 EJP RECOVERY DISK
 -------------------------
 This drive is a bootable Windows install disc.  You can use it to perform
 maintenance operations on this server, namely reparing the install, or
 performing a 'bare metal' recovery from a backup image.
 
 The Drivers for the HP Smart Array B110 RAID controller are in 
 
  EJP_SUPPORT_FILES\HP Smart Array B110 Drivers
 
 When asked to load drivers during windows install/recovery, select this path.
 If you are asked to select a specific file, choose 'HpAHCIsr.inf'
 
 
 How to hide this drive during normal operations
 -----------------------------------------------
  - Open the disk manager: Start->run->diskmgmt.msc
  - Right click on this drive
  - Select "Change Drive Letter and Paths...
  - Highlight the existing drive letter
  - Press the 'Remove' Button

Copy all the installers

• We can load the rest of our installers and tools into the EJP_SUPPORT_FILES directory

Now that we have the drive ready

• When you have everything, insert the EJPRECOVERY drive into the internal USB port
• Power on the server
• Perform all of our installs and configurations

When installs are compelte, hide the drive

• When we are done installing, hide the drive per the README.TXT instructions