Z640 Windows 11
Bertoldo Beyer
I have a z640 workstation, I ran out of space in the source SSD, for this reason I resorted to changing the original SSD for one that had 1Tb. When installing Windows 10 from USB everything works correctly until the point arrives at which the wizard should detect the SSD where to install the OS but it is not detected.
Make a clone of the original SSD and this if it works and is detected with the new SSD, so I deduce (I don't know if wrongly) that it is a matter of configuration or drivers. Now what I need is to be able to install from scratch to have a clean installation.
Check the power cable to the SSD and do the same as I mentioned above, check the cable and try a different power cable from your power supply if there is one available in your unit (there most definitely will be).
You've got bad luck and the SSD is just a bad SSD. If you have another machine to hand, try the SSD in that and see if it's visible in the BIOS. If it is, then it's likely an issue with the motherboard of the PC you're trying to install the SSD into.
In the Pre-OS environment, HP Workstations can use either Option ROM (OROM) or a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) driver for configuration and management of the RAID controllers. z640 usually includes a 2 port 6g Intel SATA RAID controller (SATA) and a secondary 4 port 6g SATA RAID controller (sSATA).
When the Option ROM Launch Policy is set to All Legacy, the SATA and sSATA OROM will only display at power on if there are two or more RAID capable devices attached to the controller, or a single device is attached that contains RAID metadata.
When the Option ROM Launch Policy is set to UEFI, the legacy OROM will not display and management of RAID can be performed in 3rd Party Option ROM Management from the BIOS Startup Menu. I think this is what you need - Windows 10 should then be able to detect the SSD (in legacy mode).
hello guys, i have a hp z640, during the w11 installation my ssd cant be find, so i tried every single driver for intel c600/c220 (iastorb.sys) is always giving me bsod, but on bios if i set the sata controller to ahci the installation is ok and everything BUT all my drives appears like removables drives or eject media, and of course the sata driver become a "standart achi" which clearly the driver is missing, is there a magic way or miracle to resolve this with windows 11 installed? thank you in advance.
the bios setting of Raid+AHCI is the correct setting, do not change this, your bios should be at factory defaults if your non removable drives show as removable either reinstall the os or google how to try a registry fix to resolve this
the intel RSTe (enterprise RST) driver (which enables the four "GREY" Intel "SCU" sata ports) if booting off of these ports you must install the driver during the OS install (when the drive to install OS page shows, there is box to click to load the RSTe driver)
thanks for the response i tried that and still i get the bsod, with hp official drivers, w11 recognize the drivers but once i restart during the booting i get bsod, and it sitck in a loop of bsod, curious thing because on w10 ive never get a bsod not after the installation or before, so ive tried every version for c600/c220 from 3.8 to 7.5 plus official drivers still no luck, there is something interesting on w11 that you could tweak on registry it could work but all the disks are (volume 0) another problem is the raid capabilities are disable due the drivers and also the **bleep** app doesn't see the disks which is ok due the lack of drivers
you may have a corrupted win 11 install, i have installed numerous z840 systems with windows 11/10 for win 11 you must build a custom win 11 installer that bypasses the TPM/CPU checks this can be done by downloading the official win 11 "ISO" image from microsoft then use the program "rufus" to create a patched win 11 usb install key
i did the steps you recommened and no luck, w11 from official microsoft page, i did 2 tests, used rufus with tpm and cpu bypasses and the other one with everything good (no tricks) and both of them bsod in the exact issue (iastorb.sys) after installation and before installation with HP official z640 drivers (sp96420)
1. You mention "SSD". Is that a M.2 NVMe stick on a HP Z Turbo Drive? If so that is the one case that I have not been able to pull off. You need to use a 2.5" form factor SSD. I use Intel 545s ones, 512GB, latest firmware. A recent Samsung 512GB or larger 2.5" SSD would be fine too. I specifically recommend having that SSD MBR partitioned, and freshly NTFS formatted, choosing the long rather than "quick" format method built into Windows. Untic the "quick" box that is usually checked by default.
2. You need to download the Windows 10 Cloud Recovery Tool official HP kit for the ZX40 workstations. I believe the one for the Z440 and the Z640 is identical, and also likely the one for the Z840. This installer is HP's gold standard installer, and it puts on an older version of W10Pro64 that Microsoft Windows Update can upgrade sequentially to the latest version of W10 22H2. That is what you'll convert to W11 22H2 after it is all tuned up. Be informed that download and use of this kit will only work if you have a ZX40 workstation that was "branded" for use of Windows from the factory. That is encoded in its firmware. One produced for Linux won't have this capability. There usually is a Windows sticker on the backplane and a notation of Windows licensing on a bottom sticker on the case. Spend some time getting that kit downloaded and ready to use. There is no cost. Realize that this build was created by the HP engineers with special parts included that should get you running. This build will be different from what an over the counter Microsoft W10Pro64 installer would give you, properly crafted and tested specifically for this family of HP workstations. This is what you want...
3. Our friend Paul T reports success with using a specific version of Rufus to pull off W11 22H2 build upgrades on officially unsupported HP workstations... I do not have experience with his method yet, so I'll stick only to mine which I know works on this specific HP set of workstations, and many others. Thus, spend some time reading our posts HERE and focus on my post on page 2 of that thread which has some images added... easy to recognize. That describes the "hybrid" method I got lucky with on my first try and have since improved upon it some. Here is key info... what used to work in upgrading unsupported computers to W11 usually does not work now with the latest W11 update (to 22H2). I combined two small components from two sources with the same W11 22H2 .iso you will download directly from Microsoft, and that worked. Thus, you'll need to also download a clean untouched .iso and copy its contents into a folder that you'll work from later. The info is all in that link above, but it is now clearer how to do this since I've done the process on over 50 workstations/laptops now, old and new, HP and non-HP, and they're all getting the OS and security updates to W11 22H2.
I run all my workstation builds on Legacy settings, without use of AMT, UEFI, secure boot, or with TPM active. The processors generally have been upgraded to fast HP-approved ones, but only a few are officially W11 approved at this stage.
Here's the somewhat surprising thing... you really only need that Microsoft .iso's content, a single 192kb .dll that you swap into one folder in that .iso (replacing the original 178kb one), and one little 4kb autorun CMD called Skip_TPM_Check_on_Dynamic_Update.cmd. On a 8GB NTFS formatted USB3 thumb drive I just have those 3 things at the top level of the drive, and I really only need 2 of the 3 because I've already substituted the 192kb .dll in for the original 178kb .dll in the .iso contents folder. Once you get things ready you launch the process via the setup.exe in the .iso contents folder and follow the instructions in my post.
4. I always upgrade the BIOS on any workstation I'm doing this upgrade to the latest. You'll want 2.59, released 5/22, which includes some significant improvements and some changes in the "factory default" BIOS settings. There is a safe way to do that using the BIOS upgrade .bin file inside a nest of three specifically named folders HP that specifies, running that BIOS upgrade from within BIOS. I'll assume you know how to do that but ask if not. Of interest it is almost an absolute rule that a fully upgraded W10Pro64 build which is working well will have all the drivers needed to run the same on W11 22H2, but there are some added tricks to know, coming later.
thanks SDH for the help. but from my humble point of view, i don't have any issues to migrate from w10 to w11 or clean install windows 10/11 with GENERIC drivers or MBR or GPT partitions or legacy-UEFI bios settings, i have 2.59 bios updated, TPM is on 2.0 (yes u can update it from 1.2 to 2.0 using (SP87753) official from HP) and also i can confirm that Windows 11 on a HP Z840 is using GENERIC drivers for the same Intel c600/c220 Sata/Achi controller in which Z440/Z640/Z840 have the same controller that are know as "Enterprise Edition" drivers (SCSI filters and extraterrestrial stuffs drivers ), so i took a screenshot of how HP program sees this build (hp z640 that im currently using) and "detailed" my issue for windows 11.
Out of respect for others who may have been hoping for the added tips I alluded to in my post here about getting W11 22H2 installed on the officially unsupported HP ZX40 family of workstations, here is the added information:
My hybrid approach has worked for us in our older officially unsupported HP and other workstations and laptops. I linked to that above. A pattern I have noticed is that one should check in Device Manager for any missing drivers before the W11 22H2 upgrade attempt. If there is a missing driver then I see a rollback from W11 to W10 happen automatically. Also, one should check for any HP/Microsoft W11 updates carefully even before starting the process. I also do a thorough disk/OS cleanup before beginning.
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