Stuck on gray screen on install of snow leopard server....

6 core 3.3 ghz, Mac Pro, running snow leopard server.
I need to change from my current RAID5 config to RAID0. How I wanted to proceed;
1) make TM backup
2) reinstall 10.6 server from installer disk (not the machine specific one, as I lost it, and apple made me pay for a new copy even though Im still under applecare)
3) change RAID config during install
4) repopulate from TM during install
Unfortunatly.....
The installer never got past the initial apple gray screen (no time bar either).
So.....
I tried cloning the installer disk to an external usb, and booting from that.......no luck
I tried removing all my drives except 1 (3 were in raid 5, 1 was stand alone), and trying to boot off both the the usb and the dvd, no luck.
(note, when I hold down option during startup, it does see the dvd installer in the drive, and it allows me to boot from it, it just never starts the installer)
Then I tried...
Cloning a minimum version of my current system onto a usb, booting from that, then formatting my 4 drives and RAIDing them to RAID 0.
Then booting the installer.....no luck
Then I repopulated the new RAID0 array with my minimum system version, so that I had an OS back on the RAID array
Then booting the installer......no luck
(and reset PR all the time....)
I do not want to go through and drag and drog hundreds of folders from TM to the new system.
I want to resintall from scratch, and have the installer repopulate from my TM backup (because that's its job!)
any suggestions?
(frustrated)
-a

"Look at that article. It says if you have  a Mac OS X 10.6 running on your Mac's Hard Drive, and double-click on Install Mac OS X Server Icon on the DVD, it will give you a INSTALL button instead of a RESTART button (beacues you have a LATER version of Mac OS X already Installed on the Hard drive)."
Yes, that's what I see now, and it hangs as stated.
Even if it says "Install" when you click "Install" it then goes on to inform you, that it will restart to begin the installation (where it hangs)
BUT I also tried WIPING the entire system (no OS whatsoever), reformatting the drives using a bootable usb (so NO OSX running on my Mac's hard drive), and it still hung.
The bottom line is, no matter how you install, it has to restart the machine in order to unmount the startup disk, and boot from the DvD.
Booting from the DvD, makes it hang
"Do you have your "bare-bones" Mac OS X fully updated to 10.6.8? If not, I suggest you do that first."
Yes it is.

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