From Legacy to UEFI issue (it would appear)

[Brad H]

I'm at a loss with this one, and I'll do my best to explain what we're seeing.

We have HP Z240's (only happening with them specifically so far) SFF, that will appear to image either over PXE or with a USB bootable using SmartDeploy, but fails on first reboot and is stuck at the login screen with a big red X on the network icon in the corner (and our default Administrator password we configured on our image won't work either).. I've reconfigured the BIOS before imaging for UEFI. I thought maybe it had something to do with MBR vs GPT partition info, but the disks are set for GPT.

This only seems to be happening on some of the original Z240's we got with Windows 7 on them from HP when they first came out (I believe the IT department asked for downgrades from Win10 back then). When we try to use SmartDeploy to put Windows 10 on them (fresh installs, not upgrades), they fail on the first reboot weirdness from above. However, if we swap the SSD (regular 2.5") with one from a newer Z240 or a new Z2 desktop, it images just fine. Has anybody experienced this? After much googling, I feel like there's some UEFI/AHCI SATA issue with the HP BIOS settings I'm missing, maybe? Because the SmartDeploy WinPE boots and starts the imaging process, and only fails at the reboot where the hard drive is now the boot drive. I can't tell if this is a BIOS issue or something I'm missing in SmartDeploy? We do set the checkbox for UEFI/Secure Boot. 

Here's the fun part, if I boot using my Windows 10 bootable USB I created with a Win10 ISO from microsoft, it boots, installs windows 10, reboots and let's me go through the set up properly and gets me to the desktop like normal, on the network and all that. 

Anybody seen this? What could it be? The IT manager has talked of just buying a bunch of new SSD's to replace these, but I'd like to avoid spending that money if it's not necessary.

Thanks for any suggestions all. 

[SmartDeploySupport]

Hi Brad,

Sounds like it's crashing during mini-setup, and we'd need to review log files to see.  Once it gets to the point where it's stuck at the logon screen, forcefully reboot it to SmartDeploy.  Cancel any unattended deployment, on the splash screen click where it says to Collect Logs. Save the resulting .zip to USB or network and submit those to us in a new ticket.

https://support.smartdeploy.com/support/tickets/new

[Brad H]

Thanks for the reply. So, I'm not sure how to do this. I can post a picture of where it's stopping, and I don't see SmartDeploy's interface/setup window thing. It's stopped at the Login screen, my Administrator password that's set on the image doesn't work, the network icon has the X, and my options are to shut it down or reboot. Can you recommend a way to get to these files on the hard drive? only bootable thumb drive I have outside of the smartdeploy one we're testing, is my win10 barebones bootable. 

[SmartDeploySupport]

From there reboot or shutdown the machine as necessary.  Then boot the machine to a SmartDeploy USB stick.

[Brad H]

Thanks, ticket incoming.