On Sun, 17 Jun 2018 02:37:45 -0000 (UTC), Arlen Holder wrote:
> Why doesn't Ubuntu 18.04 ask to install next to Windows 10 Pro single HDD
> as a dual boot?
****************************************************************************
SOLVED!
a. Ubuntu 18.04 would not ask to be installed alongside Windows.
b. None of the tutorials covered this specific installation problem.
c. There was no error message whatsoever to run a search upon.
****************************************************************************
PROBLEM:
A. The "Promise" RAID controller puts "RAID dung" on all JBOD drives.
B. It does this even when RAID has never been used on these JBOD drives.
C. The catch-22 RAID dung is placed in an inaccessible location.
D. Where reformatting & poartioning & reinstalling Windows has no effect!
E. Until removed, the Ubuntu 18.04 installer didn't like this RAID dung.
(Tecnically, the Raid dung appears as a "falsely degraded array" to
Ubuntu.)
F. So Ubuntu silently skipped asking about booting alongside Windows.
============================================================================
IDENTIFICATION:
1. There is no known command in Windows which will identify this problem.
2. The only command in Linux that identifies the problem is "blkid
/dev/sd*".
3. No other command on either OS is known to identify this specific
problem.
PROBLEM: /dev/sda TYPE="promise_fasttrack_raid_member"
NO_PROB: /dev/sda TYPE="ntfs"
4. Another catch-22 is that the sequence has to be done in perfect order!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOMEWORK:
A. Becuse of this issue, not a single tutorial worked as documented.
B. Not a single tutorial covered this issue even in the slightest way.
C. For reference, these were the tutorials that were consulted.
<
https://www.linuxtechi.com/dual-boot-ubuntu-18-04-lts-with-windows-10/>
<
https://linoxide.com/distros/install-ubuntu-18-04-dual-boot-windows-10/.
<
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1031993/how-to-install-ubuntu-18-04-alongside-windows-10>
<
https://www.techsupportpk.com/2018/05/how-to-install-ubuntu-1804-desktop-dual-boot-with-windows-10.html>
<
https://www.itzgeek.com/how-tos/linux/ubuntu-how-tos/how-to-install-ubuntu-18-04-alongside-with-windows-10-or-8-in-dual-boot.html>
etc.
____________________________________________________________________________
SOLUTION:
1. The solution involves a series of Catch-22 situations.
2. They're best summarized as two delicately performed steps:
Delicately change the BIOS "SATA Controller Mode" from "RAID" to "AHCI".
Delicately wipe out the RAID dung (using "dd" or "diskpart clean all").
(Bear in mind the dung is located in an inaccessible location.)
3. The catch-22 is that it's almost impossible to do delicately though.
4. In this case, the entire HDD (every single bit) had to be wiped clean.
****************************************************************************
DETAILS:
The desktop is manually networked via Ethernet to a rooftop antenna:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot01.jpg>
All HDDs were disconnected save for a single brand-new 1TB HDD:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot02.jpg>
Pressing F9 at POST shows the brand-new HD passes hardware diagnostics:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot03.jpg>
The Windows 10 Pro installation is the absolute latest 1803 update:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot04.jpg>
Windows' msinfo32 shows a legacy BIOS (and not EFI):
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot05.jpg>
Windows' disk management was used to create a 40GB partition for Ubuntu:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot06.jpg>
Create & boot off of Ubuntu from
https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop
Name: ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso
Size: 1921843200 bytes (1832 MB)
SHA256: A55353D837CBF7BC006CF49EEFF05AE5044E757498E30643A9199B9A25BC9A34
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot07.jpg>
In all cases of rebooting, I shut down the system (cold boot):
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot08.jpg>
But there is a quick-boot feature of Windows which is best turned off:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot09.jpg>
At this point, booting to Windows worked always sans any errors:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot10.jpg>
In hindsight, the first clue (had we known) was that this HP Pavillion
AMD-based setup contains "Promise" RAID controller software which,
apparently, places what I've called "RAID dung" on all JBOD devices,
even when RAID isn't being used on any of those hard drives.
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot11.jpg>
Notice there is no error in Windows or in the hardware boot process:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot12.jpg>
For this HP device, F10, Escape, & F9 are the pertinent keys
where F10 after POST brings up the BIOS menu, and where
the Escape key after POST brings up the boot menu, and, where
the F9 key after POST brings up a hardware diagnostic menu.
(The F11 System Recovery key appears to do absolutely nothing.)
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot13.jpg>
Pressing Escape at POST allows us to boot off the DVD or HDD:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot14.jpg>
For setting up Ubuntu alongside Windows, we needed to boot
off the HP DVD drive:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot15.jpg>
That allowed the Ubuntu 18.04 Desktop ISO to boot:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot16.jpg>
Which didn't show any error messages whatsoever while booting:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot17.jpg>
Things proceeded normally where Ubuntu presents the choice of:
[Try Ubuntu] or [Install Ubuntu]
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot18.jpg>
Following the tutorial, I hit the "Install Ubuntu" button:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot19.jpg>
Which asks for the keyboard layout (default is English US)
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot20.jpg>
And then asks the penultimate question of "normal installation":
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot21.jpg>
Where Ubuntu skips the question of installing alongside Windows!
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot22.jpg>
And where the only choice is to overwrite the entire boot drive!
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot23.jpg>
Of course, the only recourse is to quit the Ubuntu installation:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot24.jpg>
But even if we hit "Install Now" on /dev/sda, it would fail
to do anything. No error results. Just nothing would happen.
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot25.jpg>
I thought it might be due to the lack of an Ethernet network
at the time of installation (e.g., maybe Ubuntu needed some
files) but there is no way to manually set up the network:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot26.jpg>
So you can only "Quick the installation" as your only option:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot27.jpg>
Because even selecting to install on /dev/sda will fail to work:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot28.jpg>
Where eventually, you realize your only other choice is to
abort the installation and boot to the Ubuntu live DVD:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot29.jpg>
Only after booting to the Ubuntu Live DVD can you manually
set up the network.
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot30.jpg>
Where, in my case, doesn't automatically provide a DNS address:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot31.jpg>
So I have to create an IPV4 192.168.1.x local address:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot33.jpg>
Where that local address must be set up manually:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot34.jpg>
And where the relevant information is basic normal stuff
192.168.1.something, 255.255.255.0, 192.168.1.1, 8.8.8.8
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot35.jpg>
After manual setup, the network easily connects to the antenna:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot36.jpg>
Which a ping easily proves works just fine:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot37.jpg>
So now I try the installation, with networking (assuming, at
first, that the network was the problem, which it wasn't):
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot38.jpg>
The same sequence occurs, starting with the keyboard question:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot39.jpg>
This time I try some of the other setup options (but it doesn't
matter which setup option I select, it turned out):
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot40.jpg>
The "installation type" still won't ask to install alongside Windows:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot41.jpg>
Again providing only the one /dev/sda option (which itself
doesn't work, as I later found out):
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot42.jpg>
So, again, the only option is to "quick the installation":
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot43.jpg>
Which puts you back in the Ubuntu live DVD desktop:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot44.jpg>
At this point, all you can do is power off and try something else:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot45.jpg>
Where, at least, Ubuntu is graceful in first asking you to remove
the Ubuntu Live CD from the DVD tray & then to press "Enter":
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot46.jpg>
It should be noted this is a Ubuntu Desktop 18.04 Live CD
which works so the problem isn't the Ubuntu ISO files;
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot47.jpg>
Now it's time to boot yet again:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot48.jpg>
Where Windows shows zero errors and works just fine standalone:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot49.jpg>
So the problem is only with the Ubuntu installation & not Windows:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot50.jpg>
And where Windows Disk Management simply shows the 40 GB Ubuntu
space as "Unallocated" but no errors whatsoever:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot51.jpg>
It should be noted that the "blkid" command alone isn't enough:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot52.jpg>
Where we can ignore the "sudo !$" command above as a mistake:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot53.jpg>
The *only* command which shows anything relevant is "blkid /dev/sd*":
which shows that there is "promise_fasttrack_raid_member"
RAID dung on the hard disk drive (aka "degraded RAID").
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot54.jpg>
Note that "fdisk -luS /dev/sd?" shows everything to be normal:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot55.jpg>
Also note that "sudo fdisk -l" shows everything to be normal:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot56.jpg>
Since Ubuntu is known to have problems when RAID disks are put
in non-RAID systems, we installed "smartmontools" on Ubuntu
to check how many hours the brand-new disk had been run
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot57.jpg>
Running the "sudo smartctl -A /dev/sda" command proved beyond any
doubt that the hard drive had never been used prior, as it only
had 200 hours to it which was all under my control:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot58.jpg>
At this point, we went into the BIOS Setup Utility Advanced tab
where it was revealed that teh "SATA Controller Mode" was set
to "RAID", even though the setup was NOT a RAID setup:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot59.jpg>
Apparently, simply having this mode set up always writes the
"RAID dung" to the hard drive, which causes no problems except
to cause Linux to think the disk is a "degraded RAID" failure:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot60.jpg>
The three choices for the "SATA Controller Mode" were IDE, RAID, & AHCI:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot61.jpg>
Where I set the SATA Controller Mode to AHCI:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot62.jpg>
But, because the RAID dung was still on the hard drive, Windows
instantly failed to recognize the disk as a Windows boot disk:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot63.jpg>
And where no amount of Automatic Repair would fix that problem:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot64.jpg>
Time after time, attempt after attempt, Windows failed to recognize
the disk once the Sata Controller Mode was set to AHCI without
first removing the "RAID dung" on the hard drive itself:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot65.jpg>
Try as I might, Windows wasn't going to boot until I reset the
SATA Controller Mode back to RAID, as long as the RAID dung
was still on the hard drive:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot66.jpg>
Booting to the Linux Live DVD showed nothing changed on the
hard disk drive after I set the RAID Controller Mode to AHCI:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot67.jpg>
Where "blkid /dev/sd*" still showed the RAID dung embedded into
the bits of the HDD as "TYPE=promise_fasttrack_raid_member":
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot68.jpg>
Following Paul's research, changing the SATA Controller Mode
back to RAID instantly allowed Windows to boot again,
where Paul suggested a Windows Boot Manager "bcdedit" of:
bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot69.jpg>
Which seems to have stuck even though we were in SAFE MODE:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot70.jpg>
And then, still following Paul's suggestion, we booted where
it is noted that the HP Pavillion pops for only about 1 second
this "RAID READY" message:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot71.jpg>
And then we were still in Windows SAFE MODE after that boot:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot72.jpg>
And then we followed Paul's next suggestion for a bcdedit of:
bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot73.jpg>
Which finally enabled Windows to boot NOT in SAFE MODE!
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot74.jpg>
At which point we booted to the Linux live DVD once again;
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot75.jpg>
But exactly the same problem persisted where Ubuntu would not
ask to be installed alongside Windows:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot76.jpg>
And exactly the same "promise_fasttrack_raid_member" RAID dung
showed up on the hard disk drive, apparently indicating to
the Ubuntu installer that it was a "degraded RAID" setup,
even though it wasn't even a RAID setup and it was otherwise
working just fine:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot77.jpg>
Interestingly, I popped in an older Ubuntu 17.0.1 live DVD,
which also exhibited the exact same issues:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot78.jpg>
By now, I realized it is useful to tape to the display the
key boot commands to access the BIOS, Boot, or Diag menus:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot79.jpg>
At this point, I attemped what turned out to be a vain
attempt to remove the RAID dung by wiping out everything
(or so I had thought) on the hard drive by re-installing
Windows and deleting all the partitions & reformatting the
hard drive:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot80.jpg>
You'd "think" such a drastic reformat would remove the persistent
RAID dung on the hard drive - but it was all in vain:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot81.jpg>
As before, Windows installed just fine without any error:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot82.jpg>
And the hard disk drive shows up fine to Windows Disk Management:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot83.jpg>
And where the Windows Disk Management "Shrink Volume" worked fine:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot84.jpg>
Which allowed me to specify the 40GB partition for Ubuntu:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot85.jpg>
And which showed that 40GB partition as "unallocated" space:
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot86.jpg>
And then I popped in the Ubuntu 18.04 ISO live boot DVD, but,
yet again, it failed to install alongside Windows, even after
such a drastic reformatting, repartitioning, and reinstalling
of Windows on the hard disk drive.
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot87.jpg>
Following Paul's lead, it belatedly sank in that the *only* method
that was going to wipe that utterly resistant RAID dung off the
hard disk drive was a bit-by-bit many-hours-ling Windows
diskpart command of "clean all":
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot88.jpg>
Many hours later, the cleanall succeeded with the output of:
"DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk".
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot89.jpg>
I didn't know it at the time but that DiskPart "clean all" was
the only known method that finally wiped the RAID dung off that
hard disk drive. Here you see I have converted the disk to "gpt"
(which turned out to be a mistake because the Windows 10 installer
won't recognize a GPT disk - but I didn't know that at this time).
Also, you can see I formatted the disk here as "ntfs" using the
DiskPart command: format fs-ntfs label=disc1 quick
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot90.jpg>
The proof that, finally, after all this work, the RAID dung
was finally removed from the hard drive is only evident when
you boot back to the Linux live DVD and run the "blkid /dev/sd*"
command, which finally, for the first time, did NOT show
"TYPE=promise_fasttrack_raid_member"
but showed, instead, the newly formatted type:
"TYPE=ntfs"
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot91.jpg>
Now that the RAID dung has finally been removed from the HDD, I proceeded
to install Windows 10 Pro where there was a minor glitch on the GPT
partition type...
"Windows cannot be installed to this disk.
The selected diwsk is of the GPT partition style".
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot92.jpg>
I must have read wrong that GPT is better than MBR, but at this point, I
just had Windows 10 installation delete it and create a new one where
Windows also created a 532MB "System Reserved" partition (for whatever
reason Windows 10 does that).
<
http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=18_dualboot93.jpg
Being as I'm likely one of the most well-organized people on the planet,
now it's time to set up the Windows GUI as per the many tutorials written
to help users perfectly set up the Windows graphical user environment,
for example, see these recent posts from just last week by way of example
of the hundred or so steps required to perfectly set up Windows...
--------
Subject: Tutorial for setting up a well-organized consistent efficient Windows menu system
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2018 08:52:36 -0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <pfo1kd$het$
1...@news.mixmin.net>
--------
Subject: Quick tutorial for installing the Hewlett Packard HP LaserJet 2100tn printer on Windows.
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2018 20:27:34 -0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <pfmlvl$b9s$
1...@news.mixmin.net>
--------
Subject: Please follow this cut-and-paste tutorial to get batch command shortcuts working perfectly on Windows
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2018 02:04:43 -0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <pfco7q$3m9$
1...@news.mixmin.net>
--------
etc.
****************************************************************************
Key Contributors:
This summary is posted using good Usenet practice so that the next person
with the same problem stands on the shoulders of the following helpful
posters, all of whom contributed to the technically valuable tribal
knowledge archives for the solution of this pernicious RAID dung problem:
Hence, heartfelt thanks go out to Paul, Carlos E.R. and William Unruh,
along with Jonathan N. Little and Grant Taylor and David W. Hodgins
and stepore and Dirk T. Verbeek, et al.
****************************************************************************
****************************************************************************