Configure Z820 BIOs (J63 / v03.96) to recognise Windows 10 Pro GPT boot hard

[SDH]

You can see how hard HP has to work to try to get identifying printing on the motherboard for each item.  The next picture shows that difficulty even more.  You can only partially see the "SATA1" and the "SATA 0" notations adjacent to the two gray SATA ports to the right.  The far right gray port 0 is where you want the SATA data cable 0 coming from your TOP drawer (drawer 0) to plug into, feeding from your fast SATA type III SSD.  Nothing else yet.  Later a SATA III HDD or SSD can be plugged into SATA port 1, the gray port just to the left of SATA port 0, as your documents drive.

Those other 4 white ports in the yellow box  are called SCU ports you can read up on.  They have nothing to do with your project at this stage.  I'm guessing that I'd hook the Z820 optical drive cable to the first white one just to the left of the left sided gray one, reading right to left.  This is harder to explain than to do.  Here is your picture:

[SDH]

Here is a second Z820 motherboard pic from another perspective showing that bottom front corner..... better visualization of the two gray SATA type III fastest SATA0 and SATA1 port notations, plus a few of the SAS ports you'll not be using.....

[DGroves]

"SDH" is again spot on, the z820 should have the main boot drive connected to the Grey SATA port "0" and the DVD connected to the grey SATA port "1" these two ports are bog standard SATA III 6GBps ports (No Drivers required)

the White ports NEXT TO THE GREY PORTS are the Intel "SCU" sata 3GBps ports, and only win 8.1/10 have a native driver for these ports (non raid) but to get the full feature set you require the Intel ENTERPRISE RST driver (RSTe) ver 4.3 (HP) or 4.5 (Intel)

i recommend the 4.5.xxx driver off of the intel website rather than the older HP 4.3.xxxx driver

the LSI "Mustang" 2803 ROC chip on the motherboard drives the white SAS 6GB[s/SATA 3GBps ports, again win 8.1/10 has native drivers and if not booting off of this controller you should enter the bios and disable the LSI boot rom, this speeds up the booting and windows will still see drives attached to the lsi ports

just make sure you do not disable the LSI Device, only the boot rom

SDH is correct the 4 cables coming from the four internal hotswap drive bays need to be matched up to the ports in the correct order....... bay 0 to SCU port 0

the lsi ports should go unused for most users unless you have SAS (not sata) 6GBps drives installed in the four bays

[SDH]

DGroves,  Thanks much for helping on this.  My experience with the Z820 is much less than with the Z620 but at this level they are quite similar.

I've read your advice to attach the optical drive to SATA port 1.... the second gray port, next to the far right SATA III gray port 0 shown in my Z820 motherboard pictures.  There are only two SATA III fastest ports, both gray.  Why hook up a slow optical drive to the second ("SATA1") gray port?  Why waste that SATA III speed on a slow old technology optical drive.  Why not use that speed by attaching a large SATA III documents drive to it?  Especially since we all rarely use the optical drives in our workstatons, and they seem to work just as fast (slow) as always when hooked up instead to one of the slower SATA type II  remaining 4 white "SCU" ports in that row I've encased in yellow.

I think there is a little typo near the bottom of your post:  You said "...in the correct order....... bay 0 to SCU port 0"    i believe that should read "...in the correct order....... bay 0 to SATA port 0".  That port to attach the boot drive has "SATA0" printed on the motherboard.  There is a whole HP lexicon topic on SATA versus SCU ports for those who want to look such things up.  That is how I finally figured out this all on the Z420/Z620 workstations wiring, and those 4 white SCU ports can run fine as SATA type II ports but will never have the speed of the SATA type III ports.

In the Z620 the SATA II ports are black and in my picture of the Z620 motherboard I show where we hook the optical drive to.  Works fine, and that is how those came from the factory.

I consider two SATA III gray ports in the Z620/Z420 and the Z820 as best used only with my fastest SATA type III drives.  Why not hook the optical drive in the Z820 to the first white SCU port just to the left of the last gray one?

[DGroves]

HP decided they did not want numerous calls about non working optical drives under OS's that lacked native "SCU" or "LSI" driver support when users tried a non Factory OS Install

also, if a optical drive was not connected to some Z workstation models the boot screen would say AHCI driver not installed

people interpreted this to mean that all devices did not have a AHCI driver instead of the just the optical device

last when having issues (like you are) defaulting to the HP config is strongly recommended as it's a HP approved setup

[SDH]

Thanks.... I get it.  So the advice in the Z820 is to do it that way, and maybe (only after you get everything up and  running) you might wish to try it the other way that I described. 

For the Z620/Z420 my advice remains to set things up as those came to us from the factory.... the optical drive to the top black SATA type II port on the far front edge of the motherboard.... the one I showed in my previous Z620 motherboard picture.

[ianmansfield]

Hi SDH,

With regards to the 4 white sockets and two grey sockets. They have these cables plugged in to them.

Port            Cable

W SCU0     HDDBAY0

W SCU1     HDDBAY1

W SCU2     HDDBAY2

W SCU3     HDDBAY3

G SATA1     {EMPTY]

G SATAO      SYSBRD

Do I plug HDDBAY0 (if the boot drive is in drawer 0) into SATA1 instead then?

[DGroves]

To the "OP" (and SDH) of this thread, if you PM me i can supply you with a custom win 10 installer that has all necessary drivers slipstreamed along with all current MS updates for the z620/820

[ianmansfield]

Hi DGroves/SDH & 'OP' (or it that me?),

Thank you for the reply. Can  I access to that installer DGroves with the drivers you mention, maybe through temporary dropbox link?

If I change the cable connection point that I typed in my last entry, will that assist me to install Windows 7 or Windows 10 regardless?

[SDH]

Make your map first.  I'd then remove all cables from the bottom edge SAS ports.  Use some tape to label them so you know which is which, and note where they came from and went to.

Then connect the HDDBay0 cable to the far right gray SATA0.  Then, following DGrove's directions, connect the SATA data cable from the optical drive down to the second gray SATA1 port.  Keep the others disconnected for now.  You'll add in a documents drive later. 

I personally would get things running and then add in your documents drive into SATA bay 1 just beneath your boot SSD, and connect the HDDBay1 cable to the second gray "SATA1" port to get SATA III speed benefit.  That should work, and the optical drive SATA cable can go into the next-over white SATA type II speed SCU port.

The cable attachments to the motherboard were meant to be inserted into different motherboard ports depending on whether you wanted to run RAID etc. but you are not ready for anything beyond the basics.  With modern SSDs  and big SATA type III HDD document drives that is exactly how many of us run all of our ZX20 workstations... simple.

Hopefully you have a proper SSD 2.5" to 3.5" form factor adapter...... the one from HP we've posted on here.  You'll need that for your top metal SATABay0 drawer.