Welcome back to Part 2 of our DIY Unraid NAS adventure!
In Part 1, we unboxed the hardware, checked the spec, and got ready to build a tiny but mighty home-brew NAS around the Intel NUC “Skull” chassis.
Before committing this machine to Unraid full-time, I wanted to run a quick hardware test — and what better way than to throw a Windows 11 installation at it? Simple, right?
Well… maybe not.
As usual, things went a bit Pete Tong along the way! ?
Booting the NUC – and Immediate Problems
The video starts with the NUC firing up nicely… until I discover the mouse isn’t working.
Not ideal when you’re trying to install an OS.
After poking around, I realise the issue is down to the NanoKVM I use for remote access.
The trick?
Switch the KVM to HID mode only — suddenly the mouse returns from the dead.
Lesson learned:
Tiny KVMs can cause BIG installation headaches.
Ventoy + Windows 11 ISO = Let’s Try This Again
Once the input devices were behaving, I booted Ventoy from USB and selected the Windows 11 ISO.
This part should be smooth.
Except it wasn’t.
Windows 11 booted fine…
The setup loaded…
Language and keyboard selected…
Version chosen…
Installation begins…
Then:
“Windows 11 installation has failed.”
No reason.
No explanation.
Just a failure screen and a shrug.
Excellent.
If At First You Don’t Succeed – Install Again
Time for round two.
Ventoy ? Windows 11 ISO ? Setup ? Install
Copying files…
YES!
It finally completes.
That warm feeling of success lasted a whole ten seconds before Windows restarted to continue configuration — and hit me with another set of “what now?!” delays.
Still, persistence wins.
Eventually we get to:
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Keyboard setup
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Feature selection
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Updates
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Account creation
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Security questions
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More updates
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Even more updates
Whoever said installing Windows 11 only takes 10 minutes was telling porkies.
Finally… Windows 11 Desktop
After the second attempt, repeated reboots, KVM issues, updates, and the bizarre initial failure, we finally land on a clean, working Windows 11 desktop.
Why bother with all this before Unraid?
Because hardware burn-in testing NOW can save hours (or days) of pain LATER.
And, despite the chaos, the system:
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Booted reliably
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Handled disk I/O without any red flags
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Passed the Windows installation stress test
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Proved the RAM and NVMe are behaving
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Survived the “Hancock Troubleshooting Gauntlet”™
So we can move into Part 3 with confidence!
Tags: diy nas, diy unraid nas, homelab, intel nuc, intel nuc nas, mini, nas build 2025, UnRAID, unraid build, unraid nas, Ventoy, ventoy windows 11, VMware, VMware homelab, windows 11 fail, windows 11 install, windows 11 installation error, windows 11 troubleshooting