Anyone here booting Windows 7 x64 with native UEFI and GPT disk?

[timread]

Is anyone here with a UEFI-capable motherboard running Windows 7 x64 in 'native' UEFI mode, with a GPT-formatted SSD? If so, can you report any improvements in boot time, and can you share your motherboard manufacturer and model, and relevant BIOS settings you had to enable?

There's a demo here of a Lenovo ThinkPad T400, running in native UEFI mode, going from power on to logged into Windows 7 in around 12 seconds, total! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLwaKb6pLrc

There's also a good explanation of UEFI, GPT etc from a Windows 7 enterprise deployment point of view by one of the primary Microsoft Deployment Toolkit guys Michael Niehaus, here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/mniehaus/...i-support.aspx

[1stRaven]

As far as I am aware, I didn't think gpt disks were supported as boot drives. I have a SSD and a dell raid controller with a single virtual disk with gpt partitions setup.

Any time I have to install windows, I have to deleted the virtual disk otherwise I get an error message within the windows install screens when it tries to create its 100mb partition (which it will always use disk 0 for).

[timread]

Should be - but only Win7/Vista/Server 2008 *x64* can use a GPT disk as a boot disk, and only if the motherboard is running in UEFI and not legacy BIOS mode:

Q. Can Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008 read, write, and boot from GPT disks?

A. Yes, all versions can use GPT partitioned disks for data. Booting is only supported for 64-bit editions on UEFI-based systems.

from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/wind...dware/gg463525

x86 versions of the above OS's cannot boot in native UEFI mode and must use legacy BIOS support.

I wonder if your issue is because of the Dell RAID controller? What model is it? Dell state you need an H700/H800 controller to fully support it. Older PERC 4/5/6 and SAS 5/6 controllers don't support it. They have some good information on their hardware, UEFI and GPT here: http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/H...id=tYPIGw_3e-S

[shaithis]

I haven't tried it but I can't see how any substantial gains in boot times could be achieved by changing from MBR/BIOS to GPT/EFI

Sure, there are a ton of benefits for EFI (and to a lesser extent, GPT) but not many of them are performance related.

The only tid-bit of info I have that may be of help: I have run Mac OS X on a number of PCs. Some times on GPT drives through an EFI emulator and other times onto MBR drives using various hacks......I never noticed a boot time difference that I could eyeball.

[1stRaven]

Should be - but only Win7/Vista/Server 2008 *x64* can use a GPT disk as a boot disk, and only if the motherboard is running in UEFI and not legacy BIOS mode:

Q. Can Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008 read, write, and boot from GPT disks?

A. Yes, all versions can use GPT partitioned disks for data. Booting is only supported for 64-bit editions on UEFI-based systems.

from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/wind...dware/gg463525

x86 versions of the above OS's cannot boot in native UEFI mode and must use legacy BIOS support.

I wonder if your issue is because of the Dell RAID controller? What model is it? Dell state you need an H700/H800 controller to fully support it. Older PERC 4/5/6 and SAS 5/6 controllers don't support it. They have some good information on their hardware, UEFI and GPT here: http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/H...id=tYPIGw_3e-S

Its a Dell Perc 6/i so that explains that.

[timread]

There's an interesting Intel TechDoc here (warning: PDF link!) that shows UEFI POST times being optimized down to ~5secs and still passing MS Windows Logo testing (and <2secs if they break Logo testing!). Compare that to a legacy BIOS POST, which is generally around 10-15 secs.

Then, at the OS boot phase, UEFI allows faster initial boot times, because the operating system can use large IOs to read the operating system files (instead of using the 16-bit Int13 interrupts).

There a second benefit - faster resume from hibernate (since it can read data faster from the hibernation file, again because of large IOs instead of Int13 calls)

I know it doesn't sound like much, but if I'm going to be building a new system from scratch with a UEFI capable motherboard and an SSD, then I'd prefer it cold booting in 20-25 secs with UEFI/GPT, rather than 30-40 secs with BIOS/MBR, on identical hardware. Of course, the proof is in the pudding. As it were.

[garria10]

I'm new to this so I let the various wizards handle things but I've just installed a new system using Win 7 Home Premium 64bit on a UEFI Motherboard (ASROCK 880GMH-U3S3) and a Crucial M4 64Gb SSD boot drive which in this setup seems to use GPT structure by default. Windows 7 and the UEFI on the Mobo handled the installation for me (self-installed a Windows Boot Manager as the first BIOS item rather than the SSD, which is not able to boot directly from). I can confirm this system works - and is fast, however I've not been able to do any timings because straight after install I tried to do a backup disk image using Acronis True Image 2009 and it broke the installation.......back to a re-install I fear.
Anyone know a good imaging backup program that supports UEFI and SSD drives?