M.2 PCIe NVMe hard drive not when trying to install Ubuntu 16.04.6

[nunomiguelluis]

Hi there,

I have a Dell 5820 with a nvme drive, nvidia graphic's card.

I had some issues getting to dual boot with Windows 10 and linux (currently Mint 19 MATE), which now are solved. I can use both without problems. But now, I need Ubuntu in the same machine, and specifically Xenial due to package compatibility for software I need at work.

To get the live USB with Ubuntu 16.04.6 to work, I have to use acpi=off and nomodeset to be able to get into the gui, otherwise I would get a blank screen with a blinking cursor on the upper left corner. That solved, I can now enter the installation screen but the hard drive is not visible - a 1T M.2 PCIe NVMe.

Everything works as it should in Mint (and in Windows 10, although I only use it when I need to test hardware, computer vision cameras) and the disk is visible when in those OS (85GB allocated to Windows 10 and the rest for boot and Linux - 865 GB in Ext4).

As I have it now, the system boots in UEFI directly to GRUB.

I have tried the adding nvme_load=YES and nvd_load=YES (and even the same but with "YES" in brackets as mentioned here http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/....4freebsd.html), but nothing works, I always get a screen during installation with not a single drive to choose from to install Ubuntu...

I'm going nuts here... please help!

[oldfred]

Did you update UEFI and SSD firmware.
If system is new, the older 16.04 may not have new enough drivers.
With nVidia you also will need nomodeset, until you install nVidia driver. With 16.04, that is not optionally installed during the install process. You have to boot with nomodeset & install it.

Is drive in AHCI mode. I would think Mint would have required that as well.

Dell Precision 5820 with PCI NVME SSD UEFI update & SSD firmware update
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2402254

[nunomiguelluis]

Hi oldfred,

Thanks for getting back at this. I just did a fresh BIOS update with the latest firmware (1.20 from January), and that didn't help either.

Indeed, I need nomodeset for these first steps and that gets me to the graphic environment where I normally install ubuntu.

The drive is in AHCI mode, and I can boot either Mint or Windows 10 - although, every time I switch from Windows to Mint the boot freezes, then reboot gets me to the initframfs screen from where I do a manual fsck on /dev/nvme0n1p2 reboot and then can get into Mint; something is definitely not OK, but I can use both, and both OS can "see" all the partitions...

This is all with a live USB carrying Ubuntu 16.04... even Gparted from the live USB cannot see anything except its own USB drive.

[oldfred]

Did you also update SSD firmware?

Dell now supports updates from Linux.
UEFI/BIOS updates brand model list for Dell with (uefi >= 0.6.2 & dell >= 0.7.3)
https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devicelist

I do not have a newer Dell, and updated Samsung NVMe drive by downloading an ISO specific to my model. It booted and seemed like an old DOS screen to update firmware. Other brands will vary, but most only work from Windows.

[nunomiguelluis]

I updated the BIOS via windows, to the latest one. Good to know we can now do it in Linux too.

Regarding the SSD, I have the original firmware, and when trying to update (https://www.dell.com/support/home/fr...20-workstation) running the EXE file in windows it throws an error message. The log file shows "Failed: No devices found", which is quite strange...

When you say you downloaded an ISO specific to your machine, what do you mean? I remember when I first installed Windows 10 with Mint already present, I had to include the SSD drivers together in the boot key and load them during the installation, otherwise I had the same problem. Are those the same files for Linux?

Either way, why should I not be able to see the drive using a live USB with Gparted? I'm really confused and out of ideas. I looked as much as I can online, but have no idea on what to try.

[oldfred]

There are drivers & firmware.
Not sure what you did with Mint, usually I think it is drivers.

I have a Samsung NVMe SSD drive, so went to Samsung site and downloaded latest ISO.
If Samsung:
https://www.samsung.com/semiconducto...ownload/tools/

Do not know Mint, but in Ubuntu you can install nvme which is one tools to see details and latest Revision.
sudo apt install nvme

sudo nvme list
password for fred: 
Node             SN                   Model                                    Namespace Usage                      Format           FW Rev  
---------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- --------- -------------------------- ---------------- --------
/dev/nvme0n1     S4P2NF0M514514L      Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB           1         150.97  GB / 500.11  GB    512   B +  0 B   2B2QEXM7

[nunomiguelluis]

it seems in mint there is a similar tool, just need to install it as "nvme-cli" -> sudo apt-get install nvme-cli thanks for the tip.

The output is sudo nvme list

Node SN Model Namespace Usage Format FW Rev ---------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- --------- -------------------------- ---------------- -------- /dev/nvme0n1 997A22UMK3QL KXG60ZNV1T02 NVMe TOSHIBA 1024GB 1 1,02 TB / 1,02 TB 512 B + 0 B 10604106 (don't know yet how to paste as code, will figure it out)

as since this is not Samsung, might be more tricky to update the firmware.

[oldfred]

Google found this, looks like your model, Windows update file, one revision newer:
https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...driverid=7yxtm

[nunomiguelluis]

thanks. Unfortunately, just like the other ones, it fails... All these are Windows based and the installer fails. The one you point to actually installs a little program which, strangely, tells me that it can't find a SSD covered by the firmware update.

It's kind of frustrating. I managed to install Ubuntu 18.04 now, not problem at all. Have now Ubuntu 18, Mint 19 and Windows 10 all working in the same machine. But Ubuntu 16 still can't see the SSD during the live USB install...
I looked for a iso based firmware update from Toshiba, but it seems they got acquired (or merged, split, equivalent) by another company and cannot find any find for linux support.

[oldfred]

Supposedly some bugs related to NVMe drives were fixed back in 2014, so I would expect 16.04 especially 16.04.4 with updated kernel and drivers to work.
But it may just be something is not as up to date as you need for 16.04.
I am using 20.04 with my new Samsung NVMe drive and it so far is working well.