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Deploying UEFI-Aware Operating Systems on Dell PowerEdge Servers - User's Guide and Technical Specifications

Summary

This white paper covers deploying UEFI-aware operating systems on Dell PowerEdge servers. It explains UEFI technology, its benefits over traditional BIOS, and Dell's UEFI implementation. The document covers BIOS and UEFI boot mode differences, boot options, GPT partitioning, and hard disk transfer procedures. It addresses compatibility with Windows Server, SUSE Linux, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Target users include enterprise system administrators and data center managers.

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Deploying UEFI‐Aware Operating  Systems on Dell™ Power Edge™  Servers 

By Anand Joshi, Bill Munger, Mark Shutt,  Thomas Cantwell, and John Sieber 

Page Summary Contents For Deploying UEFI-Aware Operating Systems on Dell PowerEdge Servers - User's Guide and Technical Specifications

Page 1 Deploying UEFI‐Aware Operating  Systems on Dell™ Power Edge™  Servers  By Anand Joshi, Bill Munger, Mark Shutt,  Thomas Cantwell, and John Sieber 
Page 2 THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND  TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF  ANY KIND...
Page 3 Table of Contents  History ................................................................................................................................................................... 2  What i...
Page 4 History  In the mid‐1990s during the development of Intel’s Itanium‐based system, PC BIOS limitations (for example, 16‐bit  processor mode, 1 MB addressable space, PC AT hardware dependencies, etc.) h...
Page 5 What UEFI has to Offer  The primary goal of UEFI is to define an architecture that can scale with time and to offer structured coding  environment allowing easy enablement of new technology. The main ...
Page 6 Differences between BIOS and UEFI Boot Modes  The following table highlights the differences between the boot modes. Boot Mode  Feature  BIOS  UEFI  Operating System Support  Compatible with operating...
Page 7 Booting to a Removable Media Device  To make a removable device bootable, the UEFI application simply needs to be renamed to BOOTx64.EFI (case  insensitive) and placed in the \EFI\BOOT directory.   Wh...
Page 8 Option  this menu.  Change Boot Order  Allows the boot priority of the boot options to be modified.  One‐Time Boot From File  Provides a menu similar to that of Add Boot Option, but does not add the  ...
Page 9 Deploying a UEFI‐Aware Operating System  Once the hardware and firmware support UEFI, the operating system needs to be redesigned to support UEFI.   UEFI is still an emerging technology and standard, ...
Page 10 expected.  Dell recommends that you contact your application vendors for all mission‐critical applications to  ensure they work in the UEFI environment.  Limitations  This section explains potential p...

Manual Details

Brand Dell
Pages 10
File Size 187.26 KB
Published June 27, 2026
10 views

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Frequently Asked Questions

What problem does UEFI solve compared to older firmware architectures?

It defines an interface between operating systems and platform firmware, addressing limitations like 1MB addressable space.

Can UEFI support hard disks larger than 2TB?

Yes, data partitions can be larger than 2TB because the disk driver is available when the OS accesses these partitions.

What must I remember when using third-party imaging utilities?

Utilities must re-create the GPT scheme to assign unique GUIDs to partitions and avoid conflicts on different disks.

If I move an operational hard drive to a new computer, can it still boot via UEFI method?

The first system sets up the boot option in its non-volatile memory; transfer involves the new system using a copy of that optional data to setup the needed boot option.