Debian installer not detecting nvme ssd

[MetalGearPony]

Hi LTT forums. I recently bought an nvme m.2 ssd so I could dual boot windows 10 and debian 9 on my alienware 15. I intend to mostly use debian but I still need to keep windows for gaming. While windows is detecting the new drive just fine, the debian installer can't detect the drive and when I try opening a shell and trying 'fdisk -l'  it doesn't even detect the disk. To be clear, I want to set up a new debian partition and swap partition on the nvme drive and leave the other two drives that came with my laptop unaltered. Anyone have ideas as to why the debian installer isn't detecting the drive?

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Which SSD and which version of Debian?

 

I had a similar issue with drives being detected only by certain combinations of OS version, BIOS version, and type of drive. I eventually got my way without fully understanding the issue. You can see the full story in this thread:

 

You may want to try a different Linux installer or maybe a BIOS update... maybe  

[MetalGearPony]

4 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Which SSD and which version of Debian?

 

I had a similar issue with drives being detected only by certain combinations of OS version, BIOS version, and type of drive. I eventually got my way without fully understanding the issue. You can see the full story in this thread:

 

You may want to try a different Linux installer or maybe a BIOS update... maybe  

I'd prefer not swapping the drives as I'd like the leave windows as is. The other m.2 slot is being used for the C drive in windows. As for AHCI, that shouldn't have any effect as it only pertains to SATA and this and this drive is NVME.

[Gorgon]

But is the slot the new NVMe drive in a NVMe or a SATA and what does the mobo manual say about lane allocations?

 

This post states that one slot has 4 lanes and one only 2 lanes so both appear to support NVMe and one supports SATA as well

 

BIOS screenshots (F12 to a formatted FAT32 USB) showing the BIOS detecting both NVME would be useful. If it’s not seen in the UFEI it doesn’t exist 

[Gorgon]

You could also see if the LTT bookkeeper could call Alienware for you. Would be a nice followup to their pre-built undercover review.

[MetalGearPony]

7 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

But is the slot the new NVMe drive in a NVMe or a SATA and what does the mobo manual say about lane allocations?

There is no mobo manual, as stated in the op, it's a laptop.

[MetalGearPony]

For reference, I took a picture of the m.2 slot I installed the drive in. I'll probably go to alienware's website and see if I can find detailed specifications about the mother board.

[Gorgon]

The post I linked is from Alienware's Support Forum. That's SSD-2 as the support post states:

" The m.2 slot labeled 1 is the 4 lane Pcie m.2 slot, the slot labeled 2 is the 2 lane Pcie slot.  Either slot will support SATA III."

 

Does the BIOS detect the new drive on boot?

[MetalGearPony]

7 hours ago, Gorgon said:

The post I linked is from Alienware's Support Forum. That's SSD-2 as the support post states:

" The m.2 slot labeled 1 is the 4 lane Pcie m.2 slot, the slot labeled 2 is the 2 lane Pcie slot.  Either slot will support SATA III."

 

Does the BIOS detect the new drive on boot?

Good to know. It's not a very high performance drive so I don't think it will get that much out of out of the extra two pcie lanes but I'm glad I know that now. Yes BIOS does detect the new drive which is why I'm really confused why linux isn't detecting it.

[Gorgon]

Hmm. Perhaps there’s a module required or a kernel switch needed for the funky controller.

 

Have you tried disabling ACPI on install (google this) usually I’ve had to do this on older hardware not so much these days.

 

Once you back up your Windows NVMe you could try configuring dual boot on one card with both boot partitions on the one that works but the root partition on the other.

 

Does the new drive show up in Windows in Disk Manager? If it does then you could clone the Windows card to the new one, swap them, and muck with dual boot on the new card in the primary slot but it looks like some brain surgery is required to get at slot 1

 

Also try mucking with boot order in BIOS and install from iso on USB via UEFI if your not using that now. Check BIOS raid settings etc. too.

 

Bought youngest kid a Dell as it looked to be a good bang for the buck and ticked all the boxes but it’s turned out to be a massive mess.  Buggy audio drivers, power plan issues, power jack had to be resoldered and bridged after a few months ... I’ll stick with ASUS or some ACER from now on but I typically avoid laptops as they are life-limited by being mostly un-upgradable.

[MetalGearPony]

8 hours ago, Gorgon said:

Also try mucking with boot order in BIOS and install from iso on USB via UEFI if your not using that now. Check BIOS raid settings etc. too.

 

Bought youngest kid a Dell as it looked to be a good bang for the buck and ticked all the boxes but it’s turned out to be a massive mess.  Buggy audio drivers, power plan issues, power jack had to be resoldered and bridged after a few months ... I’ll stick with ASUS or some ACER from now on but I typically avoid laptops as they are life-limited by being mostly un-upgradable.

I can try installing via UEFI as I've been using legacy boot mode thus far. Interesting that you had problems with dell but not acer. I had an acer laptop and had problems to no end with that thing but my dell has worked fine for me. Considering that my windows partition won't be very heavily utilized once I dual boot, I'd like to install it on the Windows drive as a last resort, as that one is only 128 gb and this new one is 1 tb. I really can't understand why this isn't working.

[lloose]

This is common with Dells. Go into the BIOS and change the SATA mode from AHCI to ATA. It will recognize it after that.

[MetalGearPony]

On 6/5/2019 at 6:55 PM, lloose said:

This is common with Dells. Go into the BIOS and change the SATA mode from AHCI to ATA. It will recognize it after that.

I'll give it a shot but I think that AHCI mode only effects SATA drives and not NVME.

[lloose]

54 minutes ago, MetalGearPony said:

I'll give it a shot but I think that AHCI mode only effects SATA drives and not NVME.

I think I had to change it to install POP OS on my XPS 15.

[Jon_A]

I had the same issue but mine was because my drive was set to raid. Changing mine to AHCI actually fixed my issue with no hard drive being detected.

 

I think I reset my default during a boot order change on accident, but it took me a few hours to figure it out. User error on my part. 

 

Also make sure your creating the USB bootable in DD which also makes a big difference. 

[MetalGearPony]

On 6/9/2019 at 8:07 PM, Jon_A said:

I had the same issue but mine was because my drive was set to raid. Changing mine to AHCI actually fixed my issue with no hard drive being detected.

 

I think I reset my default during a boot order change on accident, but it took me a few hours to figure it out. User error on my part. 

 

Also make sure your creating the USB bootable in DD which also makes a big difference. 

I tried switching from raid to AHCI in BIOS and it worked! My laptop is dual booted now. Thanks so much!