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Can't boot Ubuntu 22.04 from SSD when its installed in the SATA slot, but boots fine if SSD connected via USB SATA cable

hn flag
lgr

Trying to Upgrade an old Lenovo G570 laptop (Pentium B960 2.2Ghz, 8G ram) running Ubuntu 22.04 from a HDD to a Western Digital SA510 SATA SSD.

With the SSD installed in the internal SATA slot and booting from a USB stick, the SSD is not shown as an installation target.

The Lenovo G570 has a Insyde H20 legacy bios (not UEFI). It shows 'SATA Controller Mode' options of 'AHCI' or 'compatible'. When set to AHCI the SSD shows as a BIOS boot option, but fails to boot Ubuntu 22.04. When set to compatible, the SSD does NOT show as a BIOS boot option.

Used 'pv' cmd to copy the 22.04 image from the HDD to the SSD. The SSD boots fine when connected via USB with a SATA adapter. But when the SSD is moved to the internal SATA slot (in place of the HDD) the boot hangs with no messages.

Seems this old laptop's ancient bios does not support SSD's? Am I wasting my time trying to upgrade? Thanks

oldfred avatar
cn flag
BIOS should not know difference as long as SATA drive. Does it not show in BIOS setting and drive listing? I used SSD on 2006 based system. You may have to install grub boot loader as copying a partition or volume will not copy MBR (and core.img) which is in sectors just after MBR with BIOS/MBR. Or if BIOS and gpt you need a bios_grub partition of 1MB unformatted with bios_grub flag. Suggest using gpt if new drive.
lgr avatar
hn flag
lgr
I think the problem is that this old machine has a legacy (pre-UEFI) BIOS that does not understand the GPT on this SSD. It wants a MBR style disk. Trying to convert the GPT SSD to a MBR SSD ...
oldfred avatar
cn flag
I have only used gpt on all new or reparitioned drives since 2010. And redid old 2006 laptop with gpt which only has BIOS. BIOS with gpt requires a bios_grub partition for grub to correctly install or the ESP for UEFI boot. When first starting to convert from BIOS to UEFI I had many drives & flash drives with both a bios_grub & an ESP. BIOS should not know if MBR or gpt. But some BIOS did need a boot flag on a partition with only grub even though grub does not use boot flag.
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