Boot System Decision

Phudsonnm,

There is an advantage to using UEFI. The primary goal of UEFI is to offer a structured coding environment that allows easy implementation of newer technologies. Some of the distinguishing characteristics it has over BIOS are;

 Abstraction for the OS. The UEFI specification provides the interface between the platform firmware
and the OS. The interfaces/API/protocols mark a clear boundary between the firmware and the OS.

• Abstraction for devices and related code. UEFI abstracts interfaces that make it possible to build
code that works on a range of underlying hardware devices without having explicit knowledge of the
specifics for each device in the range. This specification defines interfaces to platform capabilities
including standard bus types such as PCI, USB, and SCSI. The list of supported bus types may grow over
time, allowing code to utilize newer hardware through standard protocols without being rewritten.

• Scalable platform environment. The specification defines a complete solution for the firmware to
describe all platform features and surface platform capabilities to the OS during the boot process.
These definitions cover a range of the contemporary platform designs and the simple enough to be able
to extend in the future.

• OS Agnostic Rich Pre-Boot environment. The UEFI spec defines extensible interfaces that enable
creation of platform drivers. The UEFI drivers, analogous to OS drivers, provide support for new devices
and may provide enhanced platform capabilities, such as firmware update, platform configuration,
diagnostics and deployment services. The existence of networking, USB and file system capabilities
adds to the richness of the pre-boot environment.

• Consistent Configuration Infrastructure. The UEFI spec defines a methodology of describing the
platform configuring data in a standard way. The rendering of the data is left to the platform vendor.
This allows UEFI to bring all the platform configurations like BIOS, Storage and Network options under a
single setup application with a consistent navigation and look/feel.

• GUID Partition Table. The UEFI defines a new standard layout for the partition table known as GUID
Partition Table (GPT). GPT provides a more flexible mechanism for partitioning disks than the older
Master Boot Record (MBR) partitioning scheme that has been common to PCs. MBR disks support only
four partition table entries and the partition size is limited to 2TB (2.20 × 1012 bytes). GPT scheme
allows up to 128 primary partitions and can support partitions up to 9.4 Zettabytes (9.4 × 1021 bytes).
There are some near-term limitations to 2 terabyte support due to device support, but once devices
fully support GPT/UEFI, this will no longer be an issue (explained in more detail in the “Limitations”
section). For more info on GPT, see en.wikipedia.org/.../GUID_Partition_Table.

• Secure Boot. The UEFI 2.2 (or later) specification brings security to the boot process by only loading
the driver or OS loaders that are signed by a known/trusted digital signature. Secure boot keys are
managed by the BIOS and OS. Secure boot can also be placed in a "Custom" mode, where additional
public keys can be added by the platform administrator to allow execution of custom code or
restriction of code that may be trusted by some, but not by the platform’s owner.

First thing I would see if there is any devices, such as USB, Sd cards, or other devices attached to the server. If not then you can go to Device Mgr in Windows, then under the Other Devices field see if there is anything listed. If not see if there is any error reported, if so let me know the error code and I can research it for you.

Another thing you can do is run the Server Update Utility (SUU) and it will identify and update the drivers and firmwares for most of the devices in the server.

Let me know if this helps answer your questions.

IIRC, UEFI has lots of carrots and at least one big stick. 

Secure boot locks you out of your hardware as you don't have direct control of the key stores and thus can't load your own certificates, sign your own modules, and as such have direct control of your own hardware...

It's not "secure" per sai, just locked down... And you are not the platform administrator or platform owner, the OEM is. Thus you can't do much as the OEM's have yet to provide 'platform administrator' tools to Joe Average...

Only signed firmware, bootloaders, etc can be loaded by the firmware, and IIRC, Microsoft is the global grand-poobar UEFI certificate authority and as such the gatekeepers to your hardware (along with their OEM bedfellows).

But i've not looked into UEFI for quite a while so if the state of play has changed and system firmware now allows the hardware owners much greater control, then please enlighten me...

If quality platform administrator tools that return ownership to the purchaser are available to Joe Average, then please enlighten me...