Supermicro X10SRM-TF installing OS and booting from Intel Optane NVME M.2 SSD

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Fritz

Fritz

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Can't get this to work. NVMe drivers no longer available from Intel but I managed to find them and they made no difference. System sees the drive but says it cannot create a partition or install Windows (Server 2012 R2).

Supermicro has this to say -

Screenshot from 2023-06-26 19-29-35.png

I have no idea what "Make sure it's installed in UEFI mode means. There is no such setting in the BIOS (3.4 latest).

Any help appreciated. :(
 
Fritz

Fritz

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i386 said:
During the installation?

"uefi mode" means no csm or dual/legacy mode (aka "bios mode") selected
Click to expand...
Thanks. Yea, this is during installation.

You seem to be contradicting what SM says "Boot mode select set to Dual" but I'll try it anyway. BRB

Well kiss my grits, setting the boot mode to UEFI seems to have worked, It's now installing.

So why would SM say what they said above?
 
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Markess

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Fritz said:
I have no idea what "Make sure it's installed in UEFI mode means. There is no such setting in the BIOS (3.4 latest).
Click to expand...
Fritz said:
Thanks. Yea, this is during installation.

You seem to be contradicting what SM says "Boot mode select set to Dual" but I'll try it anyway. BRB

Well kiss my grits, setting the boot mode to UEFI seems to have worked, It's now installing.

So why would SM say what they said above?
Click to expand...
Glad it worked!

For future reference (for you and everyone else who's helped me in the past and could use the info)...

Supermicro's way works just fine. Setting boot mode to "dual" gives you the flexibility to boot from a source that's not formatted for UEFI booting, like a DOS formatted USB stick containing a BIOS update for example. So, that's their preferred method..maximum flexibility. I suppose they can't assume that users have paid the license fee (or generated their own licence :eek:) to update the BIOS over IPMI, and DOS over UEFI can be painful, so they need to keep that option open to folks.

What they forgot to tell you is that in DUAL mode, you have to ensure that your system selects the UEFI enabled boot option for any media that can boot in both UEFI or Legacy mode, a Windows Server install ISO for example.

When you boot the system, hit F11 and pick a "UEFI" source. Here's the F11 Boot Menu from my X10SRH-CF that I'm reinstalling to bare metal today. Its set to DUAL mode and there's a single SanDisk USB stick plugged in. But that USB can boot in either mode, so its listed twice. I need to pick "UEFI: SanDisk, Partition 1". If it boots to "SanDisk" then its going to be in Legacy mode and won't be able to install to an NVMe drive. I believe that some Supermicro boards in "DUAL" mode look for the Legacy boot option by default, so you have to override it.

1688228171089.png

I can't believe how often Supermicro support puts people on the right track, then skips a step somewhere in the middle! :confused:

Should you need it in the future, "DUAL" setting they referred you to should be in the "BOOT" screen of the BIOS. This one from my X10SRH-CF on BIOS 3.2. Its a pretty common thing for boards from this generation. Sometimes it will be some form of "UEFI" plus "Legacy" or "CSM" instead of "DUAL". On some motherboards (including my X10SRH-CF), you also need to enable "CSM support" in the "Security>Secure Boot Menu" section of the BIOS for "DUAL" to even be a selectable option on the "BOOT" menu as below.

1688229061546.png

Cheers!
 

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Fritz

Fritz

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Apr 6, 2015
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Markess said:
Glad it worked!

For future reference (for you and everyone else who's helped me in the past and could use the info)...

Supermicro's way works just fine. Setting boot mode to "dual" gives you the flexibility to boot from a source that's not formatted for UEFI booting, like a DOS formatted USB stick containing a BIOS update for example. So, that's their preferred method..maximum flexibility. I suppose they can't assume that users have paid the license fee (or generated their own licence :eek:) to update the BIOS over IPMI, so they need to keep that option open to folks.

What they forgot to tell you is that in DUAL mode, you have to ensure that your system selects the UEFI enabled boot option for any media that can boot in both UEFI or Legacy mode, a Windows Server install ISO for example.

When you boot the system, hit F11 and pick a "UEFI" source. Here's the F11 Boot Menu from my X10SRH-CF that I'm reinstalling to bare metal today. Its set to DUAL mode and there's a single SanDisk USB stick plugged in. But that USB can boot in either mode, so its listed twice. I need to pick "UEFI: SanDisk, Partition 1". If it boots to "SanDisk" then its going to be in Legacy mode and won't be able to install to an NVMe drive. I believe that some Supermicro boards in "DUAL" mode look for the Legacy boot option by default, so you have to override it.

View attachment 30014

I can't believe how often Supermicro support puts people on the right track, then skips a step somewhere in the middle! :confused:

Should you need it in the future, "DUAL" setting they referred you to should be in the "BOOT" screen of the BIOS. This one from my X10SRH-CF on BIOS 3.2. Its a pretty common thing for boards from this generation. Sometimes it will be some form of "UEFI" plus "Legacy" or "CSM" instead of "DUAL". On some motherboards (including my X10SRH-CF), you also need to enable "CSM support" in the "Security>Secure Boot Menu" section of the BIOS for "DUAL" to even be a selectable option on the "BOOT" menu as below.

View attachment 30016

Cheers!
Click to expand...
Thank you sir. Now that Windows is installed can I switch back to Dual Mode or should I leave it at UEFI?
 
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Markess

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May 19, 2018
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Northern California
Fritz said:
Thank you sir. Now that Windows is installed can I switch back to Dual Mode or should I leave it at UEFI?
Click to expand...
You can leave it at UEFI now that you're set. If you're like most people, once the server is booting fine you can leave the boot mode alone.

The only exception may be if you want/need to do your BIOS updates via a DOS formatted USB stick. You'd want to temporarily change back to DUAL just for the update.

If you'll be doing updates via Windows or IPMI, the boot mode won't matter so you can leave it at UEFI for that too.
 
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