After multiple unsuccessful attempts at restoring my WHS V1 system, and similar efforts using the USB memory key method to install WHS 2011, I finally decided to purchase the vovtech vga/ps2 keyboard adapter.
The purpose of this post is to encourage those of you who are on the fence and are blindly trying to install without a monitor and keybooard --- to just spend the $80. The install of WHS 2011 was a piece of cake once I could see what was happening.
In the installation of the cable, I suggest the following, which may be obvious to most, but just would like to make a contribution:
- Install the cable without the board attached, then attach the board when you have the hard drive backplane in place and know where you want to put the board
- run the cable in the right rear corner so that it is clear of the backplane, and other motherboard hardware.
-You can then either run it into the top disk bay where the cable and board can reside (sacrificing a disk drive bay), or (my choice) up to the top (which had been removed during the install). If you choose to go up top, you can easily attach and remove the board as long as the top is off and then curl the cable under the top when you want to replace it for a clean install. Obviously you have to store the board somewhere else with the "top" approach, but you do not sacrifice a drive bay.
Bottom line is I was ready to scrap the HP Mediaserver EX495 until I decided to try the cable from vovtech.com, and now I have a running system. It is a great device, it shipped in a day and arrived in 3 --- could not be happier.