IBM 88554RU Installation Guide - Page 48

Each bootable GPT disk must contain an EFI System Partition and it should be the first partition on the disk, right after protective MBR, as shown in Figure 1-18. Protective MBR GUID Partition Table EFI System Partition (ESP) Data partition(s) Figure 1-18 Boot GPT disk structure The EFI specification supports only FAT or FAT32 on the ESP partition. The ESP is not visible to the operating system's users by default, but can be accessed for read/write operations from within the operating system by special commands. For Windows-specific information, see "Accessing EFI System Partition from Windows" on page 147. For Linux information, see "Partitions on IA-64 Linux" on page 166. Note that a non EFI disk partitioning tool would not understand Figure 1-18 and will see it as Figure 1-17 on page 32. 1.10.3 EFI and the reduced-legacy concept The EFI is reduced-legacy, which means that it eliminates certain hardware and firmware elements of the original PC architecture while advancing the PC's stability and usability. These I/O components have been part of the PC architecture for a long time. In the x455, there is no support in EFI for a parallel port, ISA slots, mouse and keyboard ports, or a diskette drive. Tip: A diskette drive can be used if the 64-bit operating system supports the device, but the EFI does not support the use of a diskette drive. We recommend that you use a USB memory key instead. EFI replaces this support with the support for new technology such as bootstrap loading from USB devices and the use of USB mouse and keyboard interfaces. For more information about the EFI specification, see the following: http://www.intel.com/technology/efi/index.htm http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/platform/firmware/EFI/default.asp 34 IBM xSeries 455 Planning and Installation Guide Eserver