Booting Dell PowerEdge Servers from PCIe NVME. SATA vs NVMe

✅ Rufus - https://rufus.ie/en/ (Create bootable USB drives the easy way)
✅ Installing & Using Rufus! -    • Bypass Windows 11 TPM 2.0 & Secure Bo...  
💾 Boot Disk Utility (w/Clover) - https://cvad-mac.narod.ru/index/bootd...

✅ Dell PowerEdge R720 Server Complete Walkthrough -    • Dell PowerEdge R720 Server Complete W...  
✅ Manual Fan Control Mod for Dell PowerEdge Servers with IPMI Tool -    • Dell & HP Server Manual Fan Control -...  

00:00 - Booting PowerEdge Server w/PCIe NVMe Using Clover Boot
01:24 - SATA vs NVMe SSD Drives
03:39 - What NVMe SSDs Will Work?
06:34 - How Does Clover Work?
07:46 - What USB Drive Is Needed?
09:57 - Clover Install Step 1 - Install PCIe Adapter & NVMe
10:31 - Clover Install Step 2 - Install OS onto NVMe / Rufus
11:34 - Clover Install Step 3 - Install Clover on USB / Boot Disk Utility
12:21 - Clover Install Step 4 - Add NVMe Support to Clover USB
12:52 - Clover Install Step 5 - Install Clover USB in Server
12:59 - Clover Install Step 6 - Add Clover USB to BIOS Boot Menu
13:34 - Clover Install Step 7 - Save BIOS Changes & Reboot
13:58 - Optional - Reduce Clover Timer Countdown
14:58 - Optional - Hide Clover USB Drive
15:42 - Outro


❶ Install NVMe drive onto PCIe-NVMe adapter and install into server.

❷ Boot server with your OS ISO of choice from a USB and install it onto the NVMe drive like you normally would to any hard drive. Once install completes and the server reboots, you won't be able to point to the NVMe drive to enter the OS until Clover is setup on the USB.

❸ Next take your USB drive and plug it into a computer to install the latest Clover bootloader ISO onto the USB drive.

Search the web for 'Boot Disk Utility'. It's usually the first link at the top with the website name cVad MAC. It was tailored to create boot bootable USB drived for Mac OS's, but works perfect for what we need since it includes Clover. Download the Boot Disk Utility and run it. When the window opens, select your USB drive and click format. This will make the USB drive bootable. Once it completes, close the program.

❹ Now we'll add the NVMe support to Clover so that you can boot the OS you installed on the servers NVMe drive. Open the the USB drive using File Explorer and navigate to the following directory:

\EFI\CLOVER\drivers\off\

Copy the file NvmExpressDxe.efi and place copies of it in the following directories:

\EFI\CLOVER\drivers\BIOS & EFI\CLOVER\drivers\UEFI

❺ Eject the USB drive and insert it into the servers internal USB port.

❻ Reboot the server and go into the BIOSs UEFI boot settings to make sure the server will boot from the USB drive first. Keep pressing F2 and it will eventually go into the BIOS.

Navigate to System BIOS - Boot Settings. Make sure the Boot mode is set to UEFI, then select UEFI Boot Settings. Make sure the Clover USB drive is set as the top boot option. It will be the one that says "Disk connected to internal USB 1:". If it's not at the top, select UEFI Boot Sequence, select the USB 1 drive, then click the + arrow until it's at the top.

❼ Back out of the BIOS by pressing escape a few times and be sure to save the changes you made. Select OK then click Finish and the server will reboot.

When Clover runs for the first time you'll see the main screen with a few drives/partitions to boot from. The NVMe drive you want to boot from should be the first one and is already highlighted. Clover will have a 5 second countdown and then automatically boot the first drive that's highlighted.

✅ OPTIONAL - Reduce Clover Menu Time

If you don't want Clover to wait 5 seconds for the countdown, do the following: You can either remove the Clover USB drive and put it into another computer, or access it from the sever it's in if your OS can read the files on it.

Open the USB drive and navigate to the directory BDU\EFI\CLOVER

In the CLOVER directory find the file named "config.plist" and search for the line "integer 5 /integer". That's how many seconds Clover will pause during loading and is set to 5 sec by default. You can set it as low as 0 and you'll never even see Clover pop up, making the boot process immediate, but it will make accessing the menu impossible if you later want to change anything within Clover.

✅ OPTIONAL – Hide Clover USB Drive in Windows

Search for Disk Management and run it. Select the BDU drive at top and right-click. Select "Change Drive Letter and Paths". Hilight drive and click "Remove"

It will give you a prompt "Some programs may be affected by removing the drive letter", but since no Windows programs rely on the Clover drive this won't affect anything. Select "Yes" and the Clover USB will now be removed from showing in File Manager.

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