The 4K Dell OptiMac - 9020 MT - Core i7-4790 - Radeon RX 570 - LG 4K IPS Monitor

[t33j4y]

I found this: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-problem/3230b2ed-2076-4c45-bb92-59d09ed21dab

Apparently, if the computer was "born" with Windows 7, it can somehow be stuck in this belief and even if UEFI is selected, it won't work. So I would as that article suggest, have to install Windows 7 (which uses MBR) and then update to Windows 10 to make BIOS settings "catch up". This seems stupid (but hey, it's Windows...)

So I am currently pursuing this trail, which is somewhat of an ordeal in itself with Windows 7 not having the right drivers, driver packages refusing to install etc. not to mention the 1.5GB of updates it needs when I finally got an ethernet connection going... But I am not taking a chance that it won't upgrade due to some stupid little hotfix missing.

If I am successful, I will make a write-up because no man should have to go through that alone again

 

[pointandclick]

So I am currently pursuing this trail, which is somewhat of an ordeal in itself with Windows 7 not having the right drivers, driver packages refusing to install etc. not to mention the 1.5GB of updates it needs when I finally got an ethernet connection going... But I am not taking a chance that it won't upgrade due to some stupid little hotfix missing.

If I am successful, I will make a write-up because no man should have to go through that alone again

Maybe a stupid question, but you have the machine set to UEFI and not BIOS, correct? Also, turn off legacy support, do UEFI only. When imaging Dells at work I have seen MDT do a MBR (Bios) install of Windows because it detected that it was supported, but then the machine tried to boot with UEFI. I may have it backwards, but the problem is having it set to UEFI with legacy support enabled.

 

[t33j4y]

Maybe a stupid question, but you have the machine set to UEFI and not BIOS, correct? Also, turn off legacy support, do UEFI only. When imaging Dells at work I have seen MDT do a MBR (Bios) install of Windows because it detected that it was supported, but then the machine tried to boot with UEFI. I may have it backwards, but the problem is having it set to UEFI with legacy support enabled.

Yes, set to UEFI, non-Legacy (and have tried a gazillion of combos with different installers. In short, the issue is that the installed disk fails to boot (not the installer) - have tried everything in creation apart from what I am doing now :-/

And the Windows 7 install is actually working - I couldn't even get a Windows 10 on MBR to work.

 

[craighazan]

After this post over in [Guide] Install Catalina on the Dell Optiplex 7010 / 9010 Desktop PC. I set about seeing if I could create a Fusion Drive with the 1TB SSHD and the 250GB Samsung EVO. I've tried this many times before without much success on my Dell 7010 and HP 6300. But it seems like things are a little different to what they were before. I searched Apples Support for Fusion Drive and discovered a new command in terminal, I have attached the screen from Terminal below.

diskutil resetFusion



When it finished it confirmed that the new Volume "Macintosh HD" had been created and that I should install macOS. On restart CBM saw the new disk, selected it but the progress bar didn't fill.

 

[pointandclick]

Yes, set to UEFI, non-Legacy (and have tried a gazillion of combos with different installers. In short, the issue is that the installed disk fails to boot (not the installer) - have tried everything in creation apart from what I am doing now :-/

And the Windows 7 install is actually working - I couldn't even get a Windows 10 on MBR to work.

Right, but if it's doing a MBR install of Windows, something is wrong. MBR doesn't support UEFI. That's why there's no EFI partition. If you have legacy support disabled, the MBR install of Windows 7 wouldn't be booting.

As far as the installer not booting, I was specifically referring to imaging using MDT. The point at which it would fail to boot is after the OS is installed and it goes to reboot into the OS to finish the task sequence. It either has to be pure legacy, or pure UEFI. Mixing and matching causes all sorts of headaches.

 

[t33j4y]

Right, but if it's doing a MBR install of Windows, something is wrong. MBR doesn't support UEFI. That's why there's no EFI partition. If you have legacy support disabled, the MBR install of Windows 7 wouldn't be booting.

As far as the installer not booting, I was specifically referring to imaging using MDT. The point at which it would fail to boot is after the OS is installed and it goes to reboot into the OS to finish the task sequence. It either has to be pure legacy, or pure UEFI. Mixing and matching causes all sorts of headaches.

The installer boots. No problem there. It's the install of Windows that doesn't boot. Not even once.

That said, even if the installer booted as UEFI but did an MBR based install, I should be able to boot that from Legacy mode. But I can't. Honestly, I don't recall if I ever tried "pure" Legacy or only tried it in compatibility mode. It seems to consistently fail, though.

Apart from that, I don't get why an UEFI based installer would make an MBR based boot choice to a GPT disk? It doesn't make sense, but then again, nothing in the scenario I am pursuing right now makes sense either. Because if it turns out that the PC was somehow version locked to Windows 7 - that is now unsupported - and this actively prevents me from going directly to a clean, serial registered install to Windows 10... that has to be the most customer hostile practice I have ever encountered.

 

[trs96]

he installer boots. No problem there. It's the install of Windows that doesn't boot. Not even once.

When you look at the inside of your side panel what do you see on the sticker like this:

 

[pointandclick]

The installer boots. No problem there. It's the install of Windows that doesn't boot. Not even once.

That said, even if the installer booted as UEFI but did an MBR based install, I should be able to boot that from Legacy mode. But I can't. Honestly, I don't recall if I ever tried "pure" Legacy or only tried it in compatibility mode. It seems to consistently fail, though.

Apart from that, I don't get why an UEFI based installer would make an MBR based boot choice to a GPT disk? It doesn't make sense, but then again, nothing in the scenario I am pursuing right now makes sense either. Because if it turns out that the PC was somehow version locked to Windows 7 - that is now unsupported - and this actively prevents me from going directly to a clean, serial registered install to Windows 10... that has to be the most customer hostile practice I have ever encountered.

I’m not sure how you’re concluding from that thread that the computer is “locked” to Windows 7. It’s basically saying what I already said. The machine came with Windows 7, which would have meant a MBR formatted drive. Uefi will not boot from an MBR drive.

My suggestion would be to try the instructions for manually formatting the drive as gpt at the bottom of this article https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...stalling-using-the-mbr-or-gpt-partition-style

Then make sure legacy support is disabled and try to install.
As for why it wouldn’t boot in legacy mode with a mbr drive I can’t really say. All I know is things get really weird in hybrid mode. There were a lot of janky bios put out during these transition years as well.

The installer shouldn’t matter, it will install whatever it detects. If it’s seeing that the drive was previously formatted as mbr, it is likely reusing that.

 

[joel_ezekiel]

Quick question, I brought home my Dell 4k screen from work while working from home, I can only do 2k to it over display port on the onboard outs, is there something I'm missing?

 

[nicksoph]

Quick question, I brought home my Dell 4k screen from work while working from home, I can only do 2k to it over display port on the onboard outs, is there something I'm missing?

<< Solved >> - Dell Optiplex 7020 - 4K monitors on Intel 4600 Integrated GPU

EDIT: See pages 16 on for a better way to achieve this. Changed DVMT refs to 64MB - 1st Aug 2020 This 1st post is superseded by later findings - (if anyone wants to rewrite with new stuff?) make sure you read pages 16-18 ish before following this first post. This thread deals with making the...

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