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HP Recommended
z620
Microsoft Windows 7 (64-bit)

 Hello there, I know that there is already a thread about this for the z820 but there does not appear to be anything for the z620 so I hope I am in the clear creating a brand new thread.

 

 Anyways, run of the mill issue. I purchased a z620 second hand with the default windows 7 installation upgraded to windows 10. From my tests W10 is much slower in some OpenGL and CPU related tasks as well as VRAM usage being through the roof which is a no-no for GPU rendering thus I want to "downgrade". The problem is that niether a brand new Windows 7 installation disk and code or a flash-drive formatted to be a boot drive can install Windows. I always get the error that a driver is missing. On a whim I downloaded the driver offered at the beginning of this thread here:

 

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/Hp-z820-troublesho...

 

 And so far it is the only driver that Windows 7 installation detects on another flashdrive but it fails to install everytime. I have loaded the flashdrive up with drivers from both Intel and the official HP download site for both windows 7 and 10 and still the only one detected is the aforementioned one. It also does not matter if I attempt to install windows 7 by booting from the DVD/Flashdrive nor from the Windows 10 desktop though the latter does display the individual drives and partitions but does not let me install to them.

 

 Any help offered would be greatly appreciated!

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
HP Recommended

Here are two ideas, and I have run up against both issues personally:

 

1.  Installing W7Pro64 from HP optical drive:  From the W7Pro64 optical disc media using a Service Pack 1 updated Microsoft System Builder disc you can use the HP OEM COA serial number on the W7Pro64 sticker on your Z620 case.  That will be a single-workstation build but it will work fine and can be activated properly.  Hopefully you have one of those stickers.

 

Here is the issue... there are some HP optical disc drives including in the Z620 that the Microsoft W7 installer optical disc you are booting from simply does not have the necessary drivers on it to make that piece of hardware run.  You are booting from the optical disc, the hardware looks for a driver on that boot optical disc, but it comes up empty.... and it then tells you that it has no driver to proceed with.  This is not relatively rare, and the solution is to swap in another SATA optical drive that the Microsoft system builder optical disc happens to have have drivers for.  I have a known-good older read-only SATA optical drive that I keep set aside for when I hit this snag, and that works every time.  I cannot remember this ever happening if the optical drive was IDE instead of SATA.

 

2.  I have come up against a few cases where I even had to use a USB2-attached-external optical drive to get over the hump in installing W7Pro64 off of the Microsoft System Builder with Service Pack 1 optical disc.  Do not attach that external drive to a USB3 port.... the installer disc does not come with USB3 drivers integrated.

 

2.  If you are trying to boot off a USB thumb drive for installing W7Pro64 never plug that into one of the USB3 blue ports.  Make sure to use a USB2 port (top black one out front is what I use).  USB3 functional port drivers do not exist on normal W7Pro64 installer media, so you're stuck without a proper driver if you are using a USB3 port.

 

If you are building W7Pro64 OS from scratch make sure to have SATA emulation in BIOS set to RAID + AHCI equivalent, the recommendation from HP and Intel, and how installs come from HP.  If you set to IDE, for example, you'll not get the AHCI drivers installed during your build.  You may never use RAID but for sure you want to have the proper AHCI drivers on your modern build.  A tip.... the "RAID" option in BIOS for SATA emulation for at least one HP workstation is the "RAID + AHCI" equivalent.  If you choose "RAID" you'll also get the AHCI drivers installed.

 

It has been a real issue to get W7Pro64 to update properly even if you do everything correctly.  I have posted a link in here on the proper sequence and some installers to have downloaded ahead of time, and to not be attached to the internet until after those MS updaters have been installed to get you over this other hump.  Search that out, and I got that from elsewhere, and it took care of what looked like a MS-intended road block.  Not sure if that is still the case..... you will find out.

View solution in original post

4 REPLIES 4
HP Recommended

Can you please post back with the following;

 

What Bios version and boot block date do you have?

 

What other hardware do you have in your Z620?

HP Z620 - Liquid Cooled E5-1680v2 @4.7GHz / 64GB Hynix PC3-14900R 1866MHz / GTX1080Ti FE 11GB / Quadro P2000 5GB / Samsung 256GB PCIe M.2 256GB AHCI / Passmark 9.0 Rating = 7147 / CPU 17461 / 2D 1019 / 3D 14464 / Mem 3153 / Disk 15451 / Single Threaded 2551
HP Recommended

 Hi Brian!

 

 I have the absolute latest BIOS (3.91 Rev A) and Boot Block ( 03/06/2013).

 

 My Hardware/Software is:

 

 O.S.: W10 Pro x64/Centos 7

 CPU: 2x 2680 v2s

 GPU: 2x Asus GTX 1070 Turbo

 RAM: 4x8GB 1866MHZ

 HDD: 4x 512GB 6GBS SSDs (I do not remember their model but I checked them online and they do ship with this unit)

 1x HP SCSI DVD/CD  Drive

 

 Windows 10 is installed on the first Drive and Centos 7 on the second. Both are plugged into the Sata III ports leaving the other two plugged into the Sata II ports. I am trying to install Windows 7 on the first sdd with a 247GB partition I freed up.

 

 I just noticed an HP OEM partition. It appears to be only 450MB so I do not suppose I can do a factory reset to 7.

HP Recommended

Here are two ideas, and I have run up against both issues personally:

 

1.  Installing W7Pro64 from HP optical drive:  From the W7Pro64 optical disc media using a Service Pack 1 updated Microsoft System Builder disc you can use the HP OEM COA serial number on the W7Pro64 sticker on your Z620 case.  That will be a single-workstation build but it will work fine and can be activated properly.  Hopefully you have one of those stickers.

 

Here is the issue... there are some HP optical disc drives including in the Z620 that the Microsoft W7 installer optical disc you are booting from simply does not have the necessary drivers on it to make that piece of hardware run.  You are booting from the optical disc, the hardware looks for a driver on that boot optical disc, but it comes up empty.... and it then tells you that it has no driver to proceed with.  This is not relatively rare, and the solution is to swap in another SATA optical drive that the Microsoft system builder optical disc happens to have have drivers for.  I have a known-good older read-only SATA optical drive that I keep set aside for when I hit this snag, and that works every time.  I cannot remember this ever happening if the optical drive was IDE instead of SATA.

 

2.  I have come up against a few cases where I even had to use a USB2-attached-external optical drive to get over the hump in installing W7Pro64 off of the Microsoft System Builder with Service Pack 1 optical disc.  Do not attach that external drive to a USB3 port.... the installer disc does not come with USB3 drivers integrated.

 

2.  If you are trying to boot off a USB thumb drive for installing W7Pro64 never plug that into one of the USB3 blue ports.  Make sure to use a USB2 port (top black one out front is what I use).  USB3 functional port drivers do not exist on normal W7Pro64 installer media, so you're stuck without a proper driver if you are using a USB3 port.

 

If you are building W7Pro64 OS from scratch make sure to have SATA emulation in BIOS set to RAID + AHCI equivalent, the recommendation from HP and Intel, and how installs come from HP.  If you set to IDE, for example, you'll not get the AHCI drivers installed during your build.  You may never use RAID but for sure you want to have the proper AHCI drivers on your modern build.  A tip.... the "RAID" option in BIOS for SATA emulation for at least one HP workstation is the "RAID + AHCI" equivalent.  If you choose "RAID" you'll also get the AHCI drivers installed.

 

It has been a real issue to get W7Pro64 to update properly even if you do everything correctly.  I have posted a link in here on the proper sequence and some installers to have downloaded ahead of time, and to not be attached to the internet until after those MS updaters have been installed to get you over this other hump.  Search that out, and I got that from elsewhere, and it took care of what looked like a MS-intended road block.  Not sure if that is still the case..... you will find out.

HP Recommended

 Thanks for the heads up!

 

 I was accidentally plugging the flashdrive into a USB 3.0 port every time. I made sure the installation and driver flashdrives were both plugged into USB 2.0 ports and I made it further than ever but ran into issues where I could not create partitions on any drive.

 

 I removed every single drive and left only a blank one in drive-bay 1 and followed this tutorial successfully: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4ilMAAk1Q8

 

 I am going to wait for Windows 7 to finish updating before I attempt the last part whereby I remove the boot menu options. I am curious though as to what will happen when I plug the W10 drive into bay 2 as I have already verified that it can boot from that bay. CentOS seems borked though I am hoping that the Live-USB-Drive will be able to restore GRUB.

 

 So yeah, thanks for the heads up and the driver from this thread solved the missing driver issue: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/Hp-z820-troublesho...

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