Dell PowerEdge T710 - Deploying a UEFI-Aware Operating System; Deploying a UEFI Operating System

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DeployingaUEFI‐AwareOperatingSystem
OncethehardwareandfirmwaresupportUEFI,theoperatingsystemneedstoberedesignedtosupportUEFI.
UEFIisstillanemergingtechnologyandstandard,sothereareonlyafewoperatingsystemsthathavefullsupport.
DelloffersbothlegacyBIOS‐modeandUEFI‐mode.
OperatingSystemsthatsupportUEFI
‐
1) Microsoft®Windows®Vista,SP1andWindowsServer®2008–X64versionsonly.
2) SUSE
®
LinuxEnterpriseServer,release11,willcontainsupport
3) GeneralLinuxsupportisavailable,butaskyouroperatingsystemvendoriftheyfullysupportUEFIorwhat
theirplansare.
DeployingaUEFIOperatingSystem
ForMicrosoftoperatingsystems,press<F11>andchangetheBootManagertoUEFI.Oncethisisdone,simply
bootfromtheWindowsServer2008orVistaDVDandfollowthenormalinstallationsteps.Fromthisperspective,
everythingwillbethesameasBIOS‐modeinstallation.
WhatHASchanged?–
The
primaryvisiblechangesaretotheharddrivesetupalthoughthisisnotvisibletothecustomerduring
installation.BIOS‐modesetupinstallsMBRandhasasinglebootpartition.UEFIusesGPT.ForaMicrosoft
Windowsinstallation,threepartitionsarecreated:
Partition Type Format
EFISystemPartition(ESP) EFI(hidden) FAT32
MicrosoftReservedPartition(MSR) MSR
Windowsoperatingsystempartition Primary NTFS
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TheESPcontainstheEFI‐capableWindowsBootManager,bootconfigurationdata(BCD),andrelatedfontfiles
TheMSRisusedtostoremetadataoutsideoftheWindowsvolume.TheMSRpartitionmustexistbetweenthe
ESPandtheWindowsoperatingsystempartitions.
Thesepartitionsarevisible
withtheDiskpartutility–DONOTchangeorremovethesepartitions.
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IMPORTANT:YoucannotswitchbetweenBIOS‐modeandUEFI‐modewithoutfullywipingthedrive,eitherby
usingtheDiskpartCleancommandorthroughtheharddiskcontrollerandreinitializingtheharddrive.Onceyou
transitiontoUEFI,
DellrecommendsthatyouleavethesysteminUEFI‐mode.
Oncetheoperatingsystemisinstalled,youcaninstallapplicationsandusethesystemnormallywithafewcaveats.
Thereareapplicationsthatmaytrytointeractwiththeharddrivedirectly(imagingtools)–thesemaynotworkas