System does not recognize the Z Turbo G2 drive.

[bbudde]

I'm trying to setup a Z420 G2 512Gb drive into a Z420. During the OS (Win 7) install, using an HP Recovery Disk When it get to the HDD setup it does notrecognize the drive. Its the only drive in the system. I've tried looking for  drivers and I've hunted the internet for complete instruction on how to perform an OS install using the Z drive.

[Z440Roger]

I don´t know if this may help:
I bought a Z440 with a 256GB Z Turbo (G1) as the OS disk and bought a new 512GB Z Turbo (G2) and had the same issues when i tried to install Win 10 on the G2. The installer never found the G2.

I solved it by putting back the G1 and placed the G2 in another slot, started Windows from the G1 as usual and then used the Disk Management tool in Windows to Initialize the G2 drive. I then removed the G1 and replaced it with the G2 and then the installation program recognized the G2 drive without issues.

I don´t know if this will work with Win 7 or if Win 7 requires some drivers to even recognize the G2. Hopefully some other with more knowledge will chime in. 🙂

I have a vauge memory of that Win 7 and the G2 has some driver issues.

EDIT:

Here are some more info: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/Install-Turbo-Z-G2...

[BambiBoomZ]

bbudde,

This subject has a been considered previously and in my view it's worthile to review some of those discussions.

The problem is that the z420 BIOS lacks support for the NVMe memory of a G2 Z Turbo Drive as a Windows boot drive.  The G1 is AHCI is recognized by a z420 for booting from Windows.  A G2 should be recognized for use as a storage drive.

There is a way to enable an NVMe Z Turbo to be used as a Windows boot drive in a z420, which is to use a modified BIOS that includes the NVMe module. This process is highly technical and while over time, this has been simplified and packaged to some degree, I admit that I'm still a bit timid- to modify the BIOS. 

I also question the need to squeeze the drives for the last benchmark point.  For one thing, the Z Turbo Drive 256GB AHCI provides sufficient performance  in my uses. As so many processes on a PC are CPU-based- and sisingle threaded at that, I notice almost no difference using an M.2 drive in starting Windows or a program, nor on opening or saving files. One aspect of extremely fast drives is that all the the disk subsystem is on some level only as good as the slowest disk. When I was running the Z Turbo with a WD Black 1TB, the big (well, 50-70GB) transfers that I often do were only as fast as the WD Black.  Now that I keep my files on an Intel 730 480GB, transfers run at the speed of an Intel 730 480GB. When I back up, it runs at WD Blue 1TB in a USB enclosure speed, and so on.

I do like the Z Turbo Driver very much in that the effective thermal solution avoids the thermal throttling of some bare M.2 drives. 

If your uses need the advantages of NVMe, look into the BIOS modification and also consider using a Samsung 950 Pro which can be used as a Windows boot drive by loading an NVMe "Legacy BIOS".  The NVMe  G2 then might then work very well for the files and given both drives are in a similar tier of performance, the disk subsystem cold be very fast.  If a 950 Pro is used, look for thermal pads heatsink, and or M.2 PCIe adapters with heatsinks and/ or a fan.

BambiBoomZ

[bbudde]

I decided to go a different route and got a Win10 license. I was able to load Windows onto the Z Turbo drive. Win10 saw the drive and load without a problem But when I attempted to boot the Z drive (the only drive installed in the system) it would not boot. I checked the BIOS and discovered that the drive was not listed and I could not select it as the boot drive. I then did as suggested, I place the SSD drive back into the system and check Disk Management and discovered that the Z drive was initialized. BIOS is Ver. 03.91.    

[MtothaJ]

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@bbudde wrote:

I decided to go a different route and got a Win10 license. I was able to load Windows onto the Z Turbo drive. Win10 saw the drive and load without a problem But when I attempted to boot the Z drive (the only drive installed in the system) it would not boot. I checked the BIOS and discovered that the drive was not listed and I could not select it as the boot drive. I then did as suggested, I place the SSD drive back into the system and check Disk Management and discovered that the Z drive was initialized. BIOS is Ver. 03.91.    

---

This by all accounts is the standard course of events when trying to boot an NVMe drive in a Z420 (bar the 950 Pro and possibly a few other drives): Windows 10 installer sees the drive, installs the OS fine, but is unable to boot from the drive once the installation is complete.

There is a workaround -  installing an EFI bootloader (Duet, Clover etc.) on an USB stick and booting of that, which in turn allows the NVMe drive to boot - there have been a few reports on this forum that this is working fine on Zx20 machines. More info: http://www.win-raid.com/t2375f46-Guide-NVMe-boot-without-modding-your-UEFI-BIOS-Clover-EFI-bootloade...

As for bios modifications, I have modded the Z420 / Z620 bios by adding the NVMe module (same process which I have succesfully performed on an Asus X79 Pro board (method: http://www.win-raid.com/t871f16-Guide-How-to-get-full-NVMe-support-for-all-Systems-with-an-AMI-UEFI-... the only report I recieved so far is that it is possible to flash the bios rom file from the Z420 bios, it doesn't brick the board (the key thing) but apart from slightly changed boot behaviour when using an NVMe drive it still did not want to boot. As I no longer have a Z420 I am unable to test / refine this further.

PS. It is ironic that the G2 does not work on the Z420 since the bios notes refer to adding such funtionality:

Version 3.84

HP strongly recommends transitioning promptly to this updated BIOS version.

WARNING: After installing this BIOS version onto the system, prior BIOS versions cannot be installed onto the system.

Updated Intel Memory Reference Code to v2.00.00.05.

Updated Intel Processor uCode to 0x427.

Enabled Secure Erase support with Z Turbo Drive PCIe-based SSD storage solution.

Added support for future Z Turbo Drive versions.

Fixed an issue where setting boot order using WMI did not work properly in some configurations.

Fixed a reboot failure with M.2 devices and certain processors.

Fixed an issue where Z Turbo Drive would not resume from S3 with DriveLock enabled.

Fixed an issue where system would hang or blue screen with Z Turbo Drive installed in PCIe 3.0 slot.

Fixed an issue where system would hang during large file transfers with AMT enabled.

Fixed an issue where system would hang during post with AXIS T8312 keypad.

Fixed an issue where system would hang entering F10 setup with QLogic QLE2560 PCIe HBA.

Fixed an issue where system would experience PMM allocation error with HP NC365T 4 port NIC.

Fixed an issue where installing multiple USB hubs could cause some USB hubs to stop working.

Fixed an issue which could cause memory parity errors with 16GB memory modules installed in the Z620 riser under rare cases (Z620 only).

Added CPUAltPwrPolicy setting in WMI to fix issue where motherboard components would resonate causing audible noise.

Version 3.69

Corrected issue that caused WMI tools to get inconsistent results on "Get" operations which would result in user "Set" commands to fail.

Disabled Capsule 2.0 feature to fix issue where system would not boot when using this unsupported functionality.

Fixed issue where systems with 3TB external USB HDDs were halting during BIOS boot.

Fixed an issue where Digigram PCX822v2 PCI card would hang during POST (no video) due to incorrectly reported OROM bar length.

Fixed OHCI issue that caused failure to load drivers for certain cards including Teradici PCoIP Remote Workstation Cards.

Fixed an issue where some applications would request more power than the system can supply.

Improved verbose Machine Check Architecture error messaging.

Improved Intel VT-d error handling.

Updated Intel MEBx to 8.0.0.0072.

Added support for Z Turbo Drive PCIe-based SSD storage solution.

Added support for Pseudo Target Row Refresh (pTRR) DIMM functionality.

Added thermal support for NVIDIA Tesla K40.

Added 30, 40, 50 and 60 second POST delay options.

Set default MMIO assignment mode to "auto."

Added ability to assign 128 PCIe buses to PCIe devices in systems with a single CPU.

Enabled automatic resource assignment above 4GB BAR size threshold and added F10 Option to enable manually forcing resource assignment

[SDH]

MtothaJ,

Your final comment "PS:  It is ironic that the G2 does not work on the Z420 since the bios notes refer to adding such funtionality:" points out a major error that HP made in naming these PCIe slot based SSD cards, and it has confused many of us.

There is the "Z Turbo Drive" (which should have been named Z Turbo Drive G1) and the "Z Turbo Drive G2".  The supported workstations are not inclusive..... the earlier G1 is supported on the Z420/Z620/Z820 and also is forward compatible with the Z440/Z640/Z840, but the later G2 is supported only on the Z440/Z640/Z840 (the G2 version is not backwards compatible).  These are two quite different cards, and HP has never stated that the Z Turbo Drive G2 would work on those earlier workstations.

The HP release notes you posted on the BIOS updates to 3.69 and 3.84 (updates for the ZX20 generation of workstations) reference only to the Z Turbo Drive, not the Z Turbo Drive G2.

The architecture of the Z Turbo Drive and the Z Turbo Drive G2 are not at all equivalent..... the earlier is an AHCI based card, and the later is an NVMe based card.  I know you understand this, but it is quite confusing to others who have wasted good money on buying a Z Turbo Drive G2 card when they should have bought the earlier Z Turbo Drive that would have worked fine as a boot drive on their Z420/Z620/Z820 workstation.

People should take the time to go to the HP Z Turbo Drive site HERE and read up on both the earlier "Z Turbo Drive" and the later "Z Turbo Drive G2" and see that the list of the supported workstations are entirely different for these two very different cards.  The link for the FAQ for the initial Z Turbo Drive is broken but you can use google to find that.

EDIT:  There is a way that one can tell if you have an AHCI vs an NVMe version of the Samsung SM951, from the M.2 form factor label.  The AHCI one (used in the HP Z Turbo Drive, the "G1" version) will have its third alphanumeric in the P/N and the Model number as H (as in aHci).  You'll not find a Samsung SM951 in the original "G1" Z Turbo Drive released by HP for the Z420/620/820 workstations.  If a seller was cheating and using a non-HP version of the Samsung SM951 M.2 drive, but incorrectly swapping in a NVMe type, and screwed that onto a HP "G1" card the third alphanumeric would be V (as in nVme).  I have seen such things on eBay, even just today.

Here is a nice quote from the second version of the HP FAQ on the first (AHCI) release of the Z Turbo Drive.... and in this quote HP actually uses the term "G1".  This is from the May 2015 version of that FAQ, not the December 2014 one.  You'll need to search for the later one if you want to see that personally:  

"Q:  Is there a special driver that is required?

A:  No.  The HP Z Turbo Drive will use inbox drivers for all supported operating systems–Windows 7 64, Windows 8.1 64,
RHEL 5/6, SLED 11, and Ubuntu 14.04.  The inbox driver is included in the OS.  The HP Z Turbo Drive does not require any
additional drivers that would need to be loaded to use the device.  NOTE:  This is true for the G1 (AHCI) only."

I can't find any of the earlier generation HP "G1" Z Turbo Drives for sale via the HP Parts Store, so I'll share what I've done for some of my workstations.  I successfully use the Kingston Predator AHCI based M.2 drive with its attached PCIe interface card.  I have posted on this regarding the Z400/Z600/Z800 workstations.... working great for over a year, but you need to use the correct storage controller as I posted about, and this is true for both the ZX00 and the ZX20 generation of HP workstations.  If you have the wrong storage controller on the SSD that you're planning on cloning over to the Predator M.2 when you try to boot from it you'll get a slightly delayed hard blue screen crash every time.  The SSD will work just fine but the Predator M.2 will crash unless you cloned from a SSD with the correct storage controller driver.  What is the "correct" storage controller driver?

I'll add that in shortly.