- May 3, 2005
- 10
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- 18,510
I'll try to be as descriptive as possible here but feel free to ask anything that I may miss to include as I'm trying not to be too long-winded but I feel it's going to get that way quickly with this topic.
History, I'm not a n00b to installing OS's and other software & hardware. I don't consider myself a pro but I get by and understand most technical terms explained to me to hopefully save you some keystrokes.
I recently acquired an HP Z420 workstation and I'm pretty impressed with the hardware and quality for what I paid. The description stated that a Windows 7 key was included but when I attempt to d/l a copy of the OS it says that that key is retail and I need to contact HP directly. Not a huge deal because I've got a Win7 64bit disk here that I've been using for years to install on my machines whenever I need a fresh start for whatever reason. I was hoping to get the latest greatest wizz bang to save me some update time after install. Whatevs. No biggie I suppose.
One of the features this Z420 includes is something I'd like to take advantage of but have no experience with: UEFI. From what I understand I can use this 64bit firmware interface to do things like use RAID 1 for my two storage drives to email error detection in RST-e on the fly. Do I even need to worry about installing a UEFI version of the OS to do this or am I good to just throw Windows 7 Pro on this thing and going about the install like I would any other machine?
Basically, I have a Z420 with a new 240gb SSD that I want to run as my primary/OS drive and two 5tb HDDs that I want to use in a RAID 1 via the ROM. I have a Windows 7 CD but the Z420 won't recognize the drive to boot from. So I need to make a bootable USB drive to boot from but do I want to use this disk or get the image from M$ directly to use the UEFI? I also see that some are reporting issues with UEFI and revert to Legacy BIOS anyway.
If anyone can help me out with the questions I have regarding what exactly UEFI is (I get that it's a 64bit interface between the OS and the Bios but.... so?) and how to get this machine up and running I would greatly appreciate it.
Also, if I've posted this in the wrong subforum feel free to move it to the proper location but I think this was the best place for it since it's about Windows 7 but I get that UEFI could be the other OS's too so.... argh!
Thanks for the help & time!
History, I'm not a n00b to installing OS's and other software & hardware. I don't consider myself a pro but I get by and understand most technical terms explained to me to hopefully save you some keystrokes.
I recently acquired an HP Z420 workstation and I'm pretty impressed with the hardware and quality for what I paid. The description stated that a Windows 7 key was included but when I attempt to d/l a copy of the OS it says that that key is retail and I need to contact HP directly. Not a huge deal because I've got a Win7 64bit disk here that I've been using for years to install on my machines whenever I need a fresh start for whatever reason. I was hoping to get the latest greatest wizz bang to save me some update time after install. Whatevs. No biggie I suppose.
One of the features this Z420 includes is something I'd like to take advantage of but have no experience with: UEFI. From what I understand I can use this 64bit firmware interface to do things like use RAID 1 for my two storage drives to email error detection in RST-e on the fly. Do I even need to worry about installing a UEFI version of the OS to do this or am I good to just throw Windows 7 Pro on this thing and going about the install like I would any other machine?
Basically, I have a Z420 with a new 240gb SSD that I want to run as my primary/OS drive and two 5tb HDDs that I want to use in a RAID 1 via the ROM. I have a Windows 7 CD but the Z420 won't recognize the drive to boot from. So I need to make a bootable USB drive to boot from but do I want to use this disk or get the image from M$ directly to use the UEFI? I also see that some are reporting issues with UEFI and revert to Legacy BIOS anyway.
If anyone can help me out with the questions I have regarding what exactly UEFI is (I get that it's a 64bit interface between the OS and the Bios but.... so?) and how to get this machine up and running I would greatly appreciate it.
Also, if I've posted this in the wrong subforum feel free to move it to the proper location but I think this was the best place for it since it's about Windows 7 but I get that UEFI could be the other OS's too so.... argh!
Thanks for the help & time!
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