Z600 workstatio PCB FAB REV 1.02

[invo]

I need to know which version of IRST this board requires and ideally a BIOS update. Currently on 786G4 v03.61

All help appreciated

TIA

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're at the latest BIOS release according to the driver page.

It's under the W7 download section.

HP Z600 Workstation Software and Driver Downloads | HP® Support

The latest IRST driver HP has for your PC is this one:

11.5.4.1001

HP Z600 Workstation Software and Driver Details

[invo]

Hey, thanks for this I had found the page after searching on the system number and I have loaded to a USB but the system wont recognise either xx105 or xx107 on the stick I am using (yes it's good I used it half an hour ago). Am I missing something as it's an exe file rather than a zip..

Sorry if I wasn't clear originally, my issue is reinstalling windows and error -  drive not found

any other thoughts/suggestions?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

That's interesting...windows shouldn't need any storage controller drivers to find the drive in that model series.

Do you  have the drive connected to one of the other model SAS controllers that are listed on the driver page?

You may need to load the storage controller driver for the specific model SAS controller your PC has.

If you are connecting the drive to the motherboard, in order to manually install the IRST driver when it is an executable, would be to use a free file utility such as 7-Zip to extract the exe file into its folder and then you can manually install the storage controller drivers for your PC.

I've done the work for you for the driver I posted, zipped it up and attached it below.

Unzip the file to its folder, copy it to a USB flash drive.

Have the flash drive and your Windows installation media plugged into USB ports.

Boot from the Windows installation flash drive.

When you get to the screen where no drives can be found, click on the Load driver option, browse to the flash drive with the storage controller drivers on it.

If you check the box, it will only include the compatible driver.

Click Next, and Windows should install.

[invo]

Well, it certainly fought back but I got it in the end. Thank you for your assistance on the extraction. I had tried to extract the drivers myself but the file didn't seem to have them in the expected location which was weird to say the least. However in the end the issue was resolved and your help much appreciated.

IV

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.

[SDH]

To the OP and Paul,

Thought you both might be interested in this. I've worked on upgrading the Z600 workstations quite a bit, and in a prior post here from March 2022 I discussed using a modified HP Z Turbo Drive to run a specific type of Kingston M.2 form factor SSD in those workstations. You both may know that there are 2 versions of the Z600 and that the v2 is the one to be using. The way to tell those apart has been discussed in detail here... search with google for HP Z600 v2. Those can take the better faster processors and thus run faster memory.

In the HP drivers download page there are earlier and later HP RSTe installers. I discovered that the earlier (!) one allowed me to use the Kingston M.2 SSD (AHCI controller) as a boot drive (and also later NVMe controller M.2 SSDs in that same modified ZTD card as a very fast documents drive). This resulted in SATA Gen III equivalent speeds despite this generation of workstations having SATA Gen II technology... possible because the ZTD card is running on the PCIe bus.

That post is HERE and below is a pic of what worked and what did not. Those Z600 workstations are still in use and now are running W11 23H2, soon to be upgraded to 24H2.

From the original post, linked above...

EDIT: Added good info HERE