So I’m onsite at the moment with a great new client migrating their old SBS 2003 whitebox across to a nice shiny new HP ML150 G6. Now we’ve done enough of these migrations by now to know what happens, and generally what to look out for. Having never migrated to an ML150 G6 (they are new, after all), I did get slightly delayed by not having the right NIC drivers, but we moved through that quickly.

And then we hit the issue. Server simply would not boot cleanly at various stages. No errors, would just hit the bit where the new install starts to boot from the hard drives, then nothing. Black screen. No drive activity. Nothing. I checked RAID drivers, redid the entire thing. Reworking the answer file, you name it. Last thing I checked was the USB memory stick I was using the load the answer file. Stick works just fine, and has done for a few other migrations, but not this time. The server was somehow not playing nicely with this particular USB stick. AGAGH. Anyway, once that became obviously, we moved through the issue, and all back on track. A couple of hours lost, but nothing to worry about.

Lesson learnt: If server displays odd boot behaviour, check your USB devices!