Real hardware, unable to partition or format, SATA set to IDE mode

[lofenyy]

I'm using the bootcd of 0.4.11, but I've tested with a whole bunch of nightly builds. This is on a Acer AXC-603-EB11. Do note that I'm not using the stock BIOS that came with the computer, but one I downloaded from the Acer website a long time ago.

I only have the power cable, vga connector and my usb keyboard plugged into a USB 2.0 (I think) port. My BIOS settings are set in such a way that they optimize for compatibility, with fancy chipset settings disabled, USB 3.0 support disabled etc. Feel free to ask for more settings information if this is a little sparse.

What's interesting, is that when I set the SATA mode to AHCI, I can't fully boot up the bootcd, it stops at "Loading boot drivers...", the screen goes blank and the system seems to halt. However, when the mode is set to IDE, the installer runs perfectly fine, I change the partition scheme leaving only a single 2GiB partition and set the rest of the drive to unpartitioned space. When I go to format my partition however, it takes quite a long time to start, and I get "Setup is unable to format the partition: \Device\Harddisk0\Partition1". I leave all other settings at their defaults. Any idea why this happens?

[Reactions]

Is the drive MBR or GPT. Needs to be MBR.

[lofenyy]

Sorry for the late reply, I had to go spend time with family for Easter.

I thought it was MBR but now that I think about it, I'm going to double check. I'll edit this post and let you know.

I checked with cfdisk and it said that the disk label is "dos", so I assume it was MBR. I used dd to erase a bit of it and I used cfdisk to explicitly pick "dos" over gpt to make sure. I decided to partition the disk while I was at it and set the 0c part type as well. It now asks if I want to install to the existing filesystem now (I didn't format it so I can't anyway) but I get the same results as before.

I'm going to try formatting via Linux and seeing if I can get it to install anyways.

[Reactions]

I thought it was MBR but now that I think about it, I'm going to double check. I'll edit this post and let you know.

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Try all Sata modes including ATA if applicable.

What graphics card are you using? Also, does your bios have Nvidia Optimus or something along those lines. That needs to be disabled. Then try switching back to ahci or ata.

[lofenyy]

I've edited my previous post. I've tried all SATA modes and documented the results. Thee is no Nvidia Optimus and I believe I'm using a graphics device that's integrated with the motherboard. "Intel HD Graphics". I'll look up the HW info and let you know.

[Reactions]

It could be because you are running in UEFI mode with Legacy ROMs enabled.

[lofenyy]

I'm currently running the installer so I can't check. It runs painfully slow but it goes. I've formatted the partition on Linux and now it's trying to install. This is the furthest I've ever gotten it to go but to be honest, it could just be frozen and not doing anything. I don't know. I'm pretty sure I have it set so it boots things in BIOS mode since I don't think the ROS installer is capable of running in UEFI mode, but to be honest, I'm not sure what exactly you're referring to. What do you mean by "legacy ROMs"? What ROMs on my system could be legacy? Are you referring to the first 512 bytes of an MBR disk (where the bootloader lies)? In which case, you might be right.

Why would running a UEFI compatible BIOS in legacy mode cause issues?

[lofenyy]

It seems to be frozen on "Building the file copy list...". I'm going to try copying the files manually next and installing GRUB to see if I can boot it that way. After that, I'm out of ideas.

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Legacy ROMs are just BIOS mode boot devices running via UEFI mode. UEFI mode has a different "structure" that ROS is incompatible with.

[Reactions]

Try passing the target drive through a VM (HyperV recommended), and install through the VM. Once complete, run off the drive via real hardware.

[lofenyy]

I grabbed 2 USB's, put the archlinux installer on one, installed archlinux on the other (via first usb), installed virtualbox and created a vbox hd file that points to my real HDD. It installed flawlessly and I have it running right now. This is pretty recent hardware (at least I think so) so this is actually a pretty impressive achievement so I think this method of installing aught to be mentioned on the wiki. I'm going to create the page if I can. In the meantime, I consider this issue as solved.

[oldman]

This is pretty recent hardware (at least I think so) so this is actually a pretty impressive achievement so I think this method of installing aught to be mentioned on the wiki. I'm going to create the page if I can.

You may not yet be able to create new pages on the main wiki, but you have a personal page here that you could use and no one else will be able to alter it.

[Reactions]

I grabbed 2 USB's, put the archlinux installer on one, installed archlinux on the other (via first usb), installed virtualbox and created a vbox hd file that points to my real HDD. It installed flawlessly and I have it running right now. This is pretty recent hardware (at least I think so) so this is actually a pretty impressive achievement so I think this method of installing aught to be mentioned on the wiki. I'm going to create the page if I can. In the meantime, I consider this issue as solved.

You really should include the person who suggested that and helped you. (Aka, me)

[lofenyy]

Since it seems important that you get the recognition, I'll let you create the wiki page yourself. That way, you'll be listed as the author and everyone will know it was you who came up with the idea.