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Installation fails to recognize SSD

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Bruno Schneider

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May 10, 2022, 9:00:06 PM5/10/22
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I'm trying to install Debian to a Acer Aspire notebook with SSD.
Before doing so, I tried to backup the previous Linux Install using
SystemRescue. I booted with a SystemRescue flash drive, but only the
USB flash drive was recognized and shown on fdisk list.

Then I booted with Debian Install on the flash drive and, again, when
it came to partitioning, no SSD was available. So, I suppose it is
some setup issue. I'm not very familiar with SSD drives.

On the notebook setup, under "Boot" section, I disabled "Secure Boot"
to be able to boot from flash drive. There is a "Boot Mode" set to
"UEFI", but I can't change that. Under "Security" menu, I don't see
any relevant options. Under "Advanced" there is only "Intel VTX" and
"Intel VTD", which don't seem relevant.

The previous Linux installation is using the SSD normally. What am I
doing wrong?

--
Bruno Schneider

David Christensen

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May 10, 2022, 10:20:06 PM5/10/22
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I have Dell Latitude 5400 laptop that I have been experimenting with:

1. Changing CMOS "Settings" -> "System Configuration" -> "SATA
Operation" from "RAID On" to "AHCI" allows Debian to see the internal SSD.

2. "Legacy" mode (e.g. BIOS) no longer exists -- the firmware is UEFI
only. The Debian Installer detects this and boots into UEFI mode.

3. I successfully installed Debian 11 onto a USB flash drive with
"Secure Boot" enabled.


David

Bruno Schneider

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May 11, 2022, 12:30:05 PM5/11/22
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On Tue, May 10, 2022 at 11:18 PM David Christensen wrote:
> I have Dell Latitude 5400 laptop that I have been experimenting with:
>
> 1. Changing CMOS "Settings" -> "System Configuration" -> "SATA
> Operation" from "RAID On" to "AHCI" allows Debian to see the internal SSD.

No such thing on my "InsydeH20 Setup Utility". There is a "SATA Mode:
RST with Optane", but that is information, not an option. I don't see
anything else related to SATA.

--
Bruno Schneider

Andrew M.A. Cater

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May 11, 2022, 12:50:05 PM5/11/22
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OK - Optane - do you have a regular SSD setting as well as Optane memory
assisted SSD? There are some caveats that say that using Optane memory to
speed up the SSD may only work in Windows 10.

Can you run lspci / grep the output of dmesg for a disk? I'd suspect that
you might find NVME which is not /dev/sd* .

Last check: You are trying to install the latest Bullseye release?

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

Bruno Schneider

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May 11, 2022, 1:30:05 PM5/11/22
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On Wed, May 11, 2022 at 1:41 PM Andrew M.A. Cater <amac...@einval.com> wrote:
> OK - Optane - do you have a regular SSD setting as well as Optane memory
> assisted SSD?

There is only one SSD on the notebook, I think there is no Optane
memory anywhere.

> Can you run lspci / grep the output of dmesg for a disk? I'd suspect that
> you might find NVME which is not /dev/sd* .

Yes. The disk is NVMe, I can see that on the old Linux install.
Exiting the installation to ash shell and then running lspci -v | grep
-i nvme returns nothing. Running lspci -v | grep -i ata returns:

RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile SATA
Controller [RAID mode]

So I guess it is a problem of RAID mode SSD operation, but I can't change that.

Running dmesg | grep -i nvme returns:

ahci 0000:00:17.0: Found 1 remapped NVMe devices.

I'm running the testing installation with non-free firmware because of
the the wifi:
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/weekly-builds/amd64/iso-cd/

I suppose there is no newer installer than that.

--
Bruno Schneider

David Christensen

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May 11, 2022, 4:40:05 PM5/11/22
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On 5/11/22 10:19, Bruno Schneider wrote:
> On Wed, May 11, 2022 at 1:41 PM Andrew M.A. Cater
<amac...@einval.com> wrote:
>> OK - Optane - do you have a regular SSD setting as well as Optane memory
>> assisted SSD?
>
> There is only one SSD on the notebook, I think there is no Optane
> memory anywhere.
>
>> Can you run lspci / grep the output of dmesg for a disk? I'd suspect
that
>> you might find NVME which is not /dev/sd* .
>
> Yes. The disk is NVMe, I can see that on the old Linux install.
> Exiting the installation to ash shell and then running lspci -v | grep
> -i nvme returns nothing. Running lspci -v | grep -i ata returns:
>
> RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile SATA
> Controller [RAID mode]
>
> So I guess it is a problem of RAID mode SSD operation, but I can't
change that.
>
> Running dmesg | grep -i nvme returns:
>
> ahci 0000:00:17.0: Found 1 remapped NVMe devices.
>
> I'm running the testing installation with non-free firmware because of
> the the wifi:
>
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/weekly-builds/amd64/iso-cd/
>
> I suppose there is no newer installer than that.


On the few occasions that I have tried Debian on recent hardware, I have
found that Debian Stable may not support it. One possibility is to try
Debian Testing. (That is how I ran this Intel DQ67SW / Core i7-2600S
computer when it was new.)


Other options:

1. Restore Windows 10 and run Debian in a VM. Once you have everything
dialed in and switch to full-screen mode, it is hard to tell that Debian
is not running on hardware (especially when the host is new and fast).

2. Find a Linux distribution that is known to work on that laptop with
that Optane NVMe drive. (It is an Acer? What model?) What Linux
distribution(s) have you used in the past?


David

Felmon Davis

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May 12, 2022, 10:40:05 AM5/12/22
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I believe I had a similar issue with my Acer Aspire - certain options
did not show in 'BIOS' or whatever to call it. I had to hit a certain
key combination.

ran across this which corresponds to my memory more or less (I have a
different Acer):
<https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/583248/change-sata-mode-to-ahci-acer-aspire-3-a315-54k-59nz>

essentially in the main window hit 'ctrl + s' and see if options
appear.

f.

--
Davis

Verbum sat sapienti.

KCB Leigh

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May 13, 2022, 4:20:05 PM5/13/22
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Message-id: <[🔎] alpine.DEB.2.21.2205121632130.1910@Asus1>
In-reply-to: <[🔎] CAP1wdQsgJZY9x=8+OLByxjGguXJFdAST...@mail.gmail.com>
References: <[🔎] CAP1wdQs=a4HhZV4k8PG=_RJOxLht4PNm9H6...@mail.gmail.com> <[🔎] d93c2fb1-7ec4-2935...@holgerdanske.com> <[🔎] CAP1wdQsgJZY9x=8+OLByxjGguXJFdAST...@mail.gmail.com>

I really want to thank you all for this advice: it solved a problem with which I've been struggling for MONTHS!!

My Computer: ACER ASPIRE 514-54
BIOS/UEFI SETUP:    INSYDE vers. 1.17
Internal Storage:
    - HDD0: 256GB Western Digital WDC PC SN530 SDBPNPZ-256G-1114 NVMe solid state storage (SSD)
    - HDD1: 1000GB Western Digital Blue WDC WD10SPZX-00Z10T0 Hard disk (HDD)
Operating System. installed on USB stick:
    - Linux cpe-67-241-65-193 5.10.0-14-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.113-1 (2022-04-29) x86_64 GNU/Linux
      (Debian 11, installed from the CD image with non-free firmware)

MY PROBLEM: was somewhat different to Mr Bruno Schneiders: whilst the internal NVMe drive on my machine
WAS visible to the DEBIAN installer & DEBIAN OS on external drives connected to USB ports, the INTERNAL
HARD DISK was not visible to either, & booting the machine with any DEBIAN OS took a long time (the delay
occurred before the fsck step of the boot process).  The reason that the boot process took so long is that the machine
could not access the pci bridge (10000:e0:1c.4) & hence, could not access the SATA controller (10000:e0:17.0):

Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [    1.138746] pcieport 10000:e0:1c.4: can't derive routing for PCI INT A
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [    1.138747] nvme 10000:e1:00.0: PCI INT A: no GSI

Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [    1.141351] ahci 10000:e0:17.0: version 3.0
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [    1.141360] ahci 10000:e0:17.0: can't derive routing for PCI INT A
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [    1.141360] ahci 10000:e0:17.0: PCI INT A: no GSI
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [    1.141446] ahci 10000:e0:17.0: AHCI 0001.0301 32 slots 2 ports 6 Gbps 0x3 impl SATA mode
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [    1.141448] ahci 10000:e0:17.0: flags: 64bit ncq sntf pm clo only pio slum part deso sadm sds
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [    1.141618] scsi host0: ahci
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [    1.141701] scsi host1: ahci

resulting in repeated unsuccessful attempts to access the drive:

Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [    6.656323] ata1.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xec)
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [    6.657434] ata1.00: failed to IDENTIFY (I/O error, err_mask=0x4)
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [    6.972824] ata1: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [   17.152287] ata1.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xec)
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [   17.153480] ata1.00: failed to IDENTIFY (I/O error, err_mask=0x4)
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [   17.153495] ata1: limiting SATA link speed to 3.0 Gbps
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [   17.468760] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 320)
Mar  5 12:53:33 cpe-67-241-65-193 kernel: [   48.128329] ata1.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xec)

After reading your advice, I went to the MAIN menu of the InsydeH2O setup utility, typed Control-S as Mr Felmon Davis suggested.
This caused the option:
    VMD Controller    [Enabled]
to appear (Intel Volume Management Device).  This is a different option to the one described by Mr David Christiansen, but
when I disabled this, the internal hard disk was visible to the DEBIAN OS, & there were no delays during the boot process!
I had noticed that the UBUNTU OS WAS able to access the internal hard disk, because it used some method to access the
pci bridge 'behind VMD':
    UBUNTU: 10000:e0:1c.4: enable ASPM for pci bridge behind vmd
but I did not know how to access the VMD setting until I read your posts.  I am VERY GRATEFUL FOR YOUR HELP!!

With many thanks,
Ken

Bruno Schneider

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May 13, 2022, 7:50:06 PM5/13/22
to
On Wed, May 11, 2022 at 5:33 PM David Christensen wrote:
> On the few occasions that I have tried Debian on recent hardware, I have
> found that Debian Stable may not support it. One possibility is to try
> Debian Testing. (That is how I ran this Intel DQ67SW / Core i7-2600S
> computer when it was new.)

It is Testing I was using (Testing with non-free drivers, which I
guess is the same installer).

> Other options:
>
> 1. Restore Windows 10 and run Debian in a VM. Once you have everything
> dialed in and switch to full-screen mode, it is hard to tell that Debian
> is not running on hardware (especially when the host is new and fast).

It has no Windows.

> 2. Find a Linux distribution that is known to work on that laptop with
> that Optane NVMe drive. (It is an Acer? What model?) What Linux
> distribution(s) have you used in the past?

It is an Acer Aspire 5 (A515-54G). It came with Endless Linux.


On Thu, May 12, 2022 at 11:36 AM Felmon Davis wrote:
>
> essentially in the main window hit 'ctrl + s' and see if options
> appear.
>

Thank you. Hitting Ctrl+S in the "Main" tab causes the "SATA Mode"
option to appear, and I can change to AHCI. I'll try to install Debian
now.

--
Bruno Schneider
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