Score:1

Ubuntu live USB stick cannot detect SATA SSD disk even when AHCI enabled and RAID off

pl flag

Problem Summary:

During an Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) dual-boot installation from a live USB stick, the Ubuntu setup installer cannot detect my SATA SSD disk, even though the BIOS does detect it.

System info:

  • Dell Inspiron 7786 2-in-1 laptop with the latest Dell BIOS 1.16
  • 16Gb DDR4 RAM
  • Primary drive: WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD, with Windows 11 installed, Fast Startup is disabled
  • Secondary drive: SK Hynix M.2 NVMe 512G SSD
  • live USB created (UEFI mode) using Rufus with latest Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) .iso

BIOS settings:

  • UEFI is enabled
  • SATA AHCI-mode is enabled (i.e. Raid RST is disabled)
  • Secure boot is enabled
  • Both SATA SSD and m.2 NVMe hynix SSD drives appear properly in UEFI System Configuration

Additional info:

  1. My use case or intent for attempting to install using a liveUSB session is to install a dual boot setup on my Drive 0 with Ubuntu on my primary SATA SSD in a separate partition /dev/sda5 alongside the Windows partition on /dev/sda3.
  2. The SATA SSD detection issue occurs even though the main WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD drive 0 is detected and shows up fine in the Dell BIOS system configuration. Unfortunately, during the liveUSB install, only my secondary NVMe M.2 SSD drive shows up as a potential target drive for installation - the intended SATA SSD drive target volume is missing.
  3. My secondary M.2 NVMe SSD drive (always detected) is used as a backup of my primary SATA SSD (created using Macrium Reflect in Windows to clone SATA SSD to the M.2 SSD).
  4. I have occasionally seen one instance where the SATA SSD initially was detected by the live USB installer, only to have the SATA SSD drive disappear once I went to "Install Alongside" my existing Windows.
  5. I can install ubuntu alongside Windows as a dual boot on the secondary 512Gb M.2 NVMe SSD drive. In his case, when I boot normally (i.e. not a liveUSB session) into ubuntu running on the M.2 SSD, ubuntu does not detect the SATA drive (even though I see both SSD drives if I boot from grub into Windows). This is actually a separate issue (but possibly related as the SATA SSD detection is problematic for both live USB and normal ubuntu sessions).

Any ideas?

Gfinlay avatar
pl flag
I looked at some existing threads on AskUbuntu about SSD drives not being detected in a live USB session. The common proposed solution in many of those threads was to disable RAID and enable AHCI in Bios. This is not a solution for me as in my case AHCI is enabled and RAID is disabled.
oldfred avatar
cn flag
You also need Windows bitlocker off. Setting may be confusing on whether on or off, but if one, then it is encrypted & Linux NTFS driver cannot see drive. Also Windows fast start up must be off as that sets hibernation flag. NVMe drive is the faster drive. Better to have installs on it and use SATA drive as backup. You also could have each install on its own drive & backup up that install to other drive.
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