Linux live usb doesn't detect HDD on Aspire 3 a315-56

Ishmael · February 2020

Hello everyone!
I try to install Linux Mint 19.3 xfce-edition on my laptop Aspire 3 a315-56 (this laptop cames without installed OS). I disabled secure boot and fast boot from BIOS. I also switched sata mode to ahci and updated BIOS to 1.05 version. Live usb starts and work normally, but it is not possible to install OS, because Linux doesn't detect hard drive. I tried different linux distributions: Ubuntu, Debian, Manjaro and I had the same problem.

Live usb with windows 10 recognised HDD normally.

Please, help me with solving this problem! I don't have any idea what to do :-(((

ed4myra · February 2020

it can be that the disk was gpt instead of mbr partitioned. You can check the following:
- check in bios that storage configuration both hdd0 and hdd1 are enabled - just to be certain
- set bios in secure boot, try ubuntu live usb - because it can do secure boot - and check if the disk is being recognized. you can startup gparted the partition tool to see how the disk is being configured, like gpt vs mbr, how big the boot efi partition is, etc.
If gparted is not there, you can install - " $ sudo apt-get install gparted" - make sure you have network working of course

Ishmael · February 2020

ed4myra said:

it can be that the disk was gpt instead of mbr partitioned. You can check the following:
- check in bios that storage configuration both hdd0 and hdd1 are enabled - just to be certain
- set bios in secure boot, try ubuntu live usb - because it can do secure boot - and check if the disk is being recognized. you can startup gparted the partition tool to see how the disk is being configured, like gpt vs mbr, how big the boot efi partition is, etc.
If gparted is not there, you can install - " $ sudo apt-get install gparted" - make sure you have network working of course

Thank for your reply! I did as you said: checked in BIOS, that hdd0 and hdd1 are both enabled, set secure boot and started Ubuntu 18 from live usb. Unfortunately, Ubuntu still didn't recognize HDD. Gparted recognised only one disk: usb stick, from which Ubuntu was started.
(Sata mode in BIOS was still is AHCI).

ed4myra · February 2020

i am then curious how your disk(s) layout looks like in Windows. Can you send a screen print of diskmgmt in windows. It can be that the disk you wanna install linux has not been properly initialised. Seems strange to me.

Ishmael · February 2020

ed4myra said:

i am then curious how your disk(s) layout looks like in Windows. Can you send a screen print of diskmgmt in windows. It can be that the disk you wanna install linux has not been properly initialised. Seems strange to me.

Here is screenshot of disk mananger in Windows.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/no/j6hgxg41zysw.png

ed4myra · February 2020

Weird to me, the disk looks good in Windows, your BIOS SATA mode is AHCI and ubuntu installer cannot see the disk.

Can you check one more thing: in ubuntu live usb, open a terminal and enter the command "lspci | grep SATA" and "lspci | grep IDE".
If the first command shows that there is no SATA controller then your HDD is not being recognized by linux. If the second command shows a controller in IDE mode, then there is something wrong with the kernel seeing the BIOS SATA mode as IDE instead of AHCI.

Both cases seems rare to me, but for the first case you can check if your hard disk or controller is supported by linux. For the second case can be that there is a BIOS and Linux kernel mismatch.

Furthermore I rest my case.

Ishmael · February 2020

ed4myra said:

Weird to me, the disk looks good in Windows, your BIOS SATA mode is AHCI and ubuntu installer cannot see the disk.

Can you check one more thing: in ubuntu live usb, open a terminal and enter the command "lspci | grep SATA" and "lspci | grep IDE".
If the first command shows that there is no SATA controller then your HDD is not being recognized by linux. If the second command shows a controller in IDE mode, then there is something wrong with the kernel seeing the BIOS SATA mode as IDE instead of AHCI.

Both cases seems rare to me, but for the first case you can check if your hard disk or controller is supported by linux. For the second case can be that there is a BIOS and Linux kernel mismatch.

Furthermore I rest my case.

The command "lspci | grep SATA" gives: "00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Ice Lake-LP SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 30)"

and command "lspci | grep IDE" gives nothing...

So, it is nor the first case nor the second?

ed4myra · February 2020

It says that the BIOS mode SATA is detected correctly by the kernel and the SATA controller.

Now let us see if there are drivers and disks attached to the sata controller.
Can you do: "sudo lshw -c storage -c disk". You should read the disk config connected to the controller.

Just to check that RAID is not set, do "inxi -DGR". Also "lsblk", and "sudo fdisk -l". With the last 2 commands you should be able to read the disk partitions that you also see in windows.

Ishmael · March 2020

ed4myra said:

It says that the BIOS mode SATA is detected correctly by the kernel and the SATA controller.

Now let us see if there are drivers and disks attached to the sata controller.
Can you do: "sudo lshw -c storage -c disk". You should read the disk config connected to the controller.

Just to check that RAID is not set, do "inxi -DGR". Also "lsblk", and "sudo fdisk -l". With the last 2 commands you should be able to read the disk partitions that you also see in windows.

Sorry for long reply!

"sudo lshw -c storage -c disk" gives:

*-usb
description: Mass storage device
product: Ultra Fit
vendor: SanDisk
physical id: 1
bus info: [email protected]:1
logical name: scsi2
version: 1.00
serial: 0501947e9b859f01b32e53c71dcc7d

195a364f5508945c6ce5f74adb743c1f189202000000000000
capabilities: usb-3.20 scsi emulated scsi-host
configuration: driver=usb-storage maxpower=896mA speed=5000Mbit/s
*-disk
description: SCSI Disk
product: Ultra Fit
vendor: SanDisk
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: [email protected]:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sda
version: 1.00
serial: 0501947e9b859f01b32e
size: 28GiB (30GB)
capabilities: removable
configuration: ansiversion=6 logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=512
*-medium
physical id: 0
logical name: /dev/sda
size: 28GiB (30GB)
capabilities: gpt-1.00 partitioned partitioned:gpt
configuration: guid=ba23ef79-7da2-4987-8c38-93aeba9e68a5
*-storage
description: SATA controller
product: Ice Lake-LP SATA Controller [AHCI mode]
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 17
bus info: [email protected]:00:17.0
version: 30
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: storage msi pm ahci_1.0 bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=ahci latency=0
resources: irq:125 memory:4fb10000-4fb11fff
memory:4fb14000-4fb140ff ioport:4080(size=8) ioport:4088(size=4)
ioport:4060(size=32) memory:4fb13000-4fb137ff

inxi -DGR gives:

Graphics: Device-1: Intel driver: i915 v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.5 driver: modesetting
unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel UHD Graphics (Ice Lake 4x8
GT1) v: 4.5 Mesa 19.2.8
Drives: Local Storage: total: 28.65 GiB used: 7.67 GiB (26.8%)
ID-1: /dev/sda type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: Ultra Fit
size: 28.65 GiB
RAID: Message: No RAID data was found.

lsblk gives:

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 1 28,7G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 1 512M 0 part /boot/efi
└─sda2 8:2 1 28,2G 0 part /

sudo fdisk -l gives:

Disk /dev/sda: 28,7 GiB, 30765219840 bytes, 60088320 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: BA23EF79-7DA2-4987-8C38-93AEBA

9E68A5

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System
/dev/sda2 1050624 60086271 59035648 28,2G Linux filesystem

According to BIOS information, my laptop have two HDD ports: HDD0 and HDD1. My hard drive is connected to HDD1. May be, I could solve the problem if I connected hard drive to HDD0 port...

Tyzef · June 2020

Hi guys there !
How are you doing?

I am joining you Ishmael with facing the same problem from a316-56...

Today I have tried Fedora 32 Rawhide 20200618 with 5.8.o.o kernel and still HDD is not detecting...

I have tried the HDD on another Linux and it work... So problem is not from HDD.

From :
https://www.acer.com/datasheets/2020/4876/A315-56/NX.HS5EM.007.html

It say : Software Operating System Platform - Linux.

Okay, but how?

Regards.

Ishmael · July 2020

I think, the problem is that linux doesn't support HDD controller used in this laptop. Therefore, this problem doesn't have a solution.

aphanic · July 2020

There's a whitepaper that could prove useful: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/white-papers/rst-linux-paper.pdf

Generally AHCI is preferred because it's easier to set up in Linux, but it can work in RST mode, only you have to mount it as a software RAID. It's worth a shot, I am able to access mine when it's in RST mode like this, but my platform is Comet Lake and not Ice Lake.

Simga1986 · August 2020

aphanic said:

There's a whitepaper that could prove useful: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/white-papers/rst-linux-paper.pdf

Generally AHCI is preferred because it's easier to set up in Linux, but it can work in RST mode, only you have to mount it as a software RAID. It's worth a shot, I am able to access mine when it's in RST mode like this, but my platform is Comet Lake and not Ice Lake.

I have the same acer model. By setting it up as AHCI I can see my NVMe (250 GB) but not my 2.5" SSD (120 GB).

How can we set up RAID on a single NVMe SSD? Any tutorial you have in mind that can guide me?

aphanic · August 2020

Simga1986 said:
How can we set up RAID on a single NVMe SSD? Any tutorial you have in mind that can guide me?

I'm afraid not, in RST mdadm can't even detect anything connected in the port to build up an array in my machine, if I am to use Linux (in the internal drive) I must go with AHCI, but I don't have any secondary 2.5'' drive connected.

Makes me wonder though, you're able to see the M.2 drive but not the 2.5'' one?! WTF is going on here...

Simga1986 · August 2020

Ishmael said:

Hello everyone!
I try to install Linux Mint 19.3 xfce-edition on my laptop Aspire 3 a315-56 (this laptop cames without installed OS). I disabled secure boot and fast boot from BIOS. I also switched sata mode to ahci and updated BIOS to 1.05 version. Live usb starts and work normally, but it is not possible to install OS, because Linux doesn't detect hard drive. I tried different linux distributions: Ubuntu, Debian, Manjaro and I had the same problem.

Live usb with windows 10 recognised HDD normally.

Please, help me with solving this problem! I don't have any idea what to do :-(((

Hi!!

I have the latest BIOS and with it only NVMe gets detected in AHCI mode. My other Sata 2.5" SSD is still invisible.

To move to the AHCI mode, go to "Main Tab" then press ctrl+s. Change Optane without RAID to AHCI.

ngrpthomas · August 2020

Hi, I have the EXACT same problem on my Acer laptop that I bought a few days ago! I don't have an SSD - only have a 1TB HDD.
I disabled secure boot, fast boot, changed controller mode to AHCI etc.

All I get are the same results as shown in the thread! I need to run linux on it for work, is there any way to fix this?

Ishmael · August 2020

I think, the problem is that linux doesn't support HDD controller used in this laptop. Therefore, this problem doesn't have a solution.

Simga1986 said:

Hi!!

I have the latest BIOS and with it only NVMe gets detected in AHCI mode. My other Sata 2.5" SSD is still invisible.

To move to the AHCI mode, go to "Main Tab" then press ctrl+s. Change Optane without RAID to AHCI.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help for HDD :-(

ngrpthomas said:

Hi, I have the EXACT same problem on my Acer laptop that I bought a few days ago! I don't have an SSD - only have a 1TB HDD.
I disabled secure boot, fast boot, changed controller mode to AHCI etc.

All I get are the same results as shown in the thread! I need to run linux on it for work, is there any way to fix this?

I think, there is the only way to fix our problem: connect somehow with developers of some linux distro and ask them to add support of hdd controller used in this Acer laptop.

ngrpthomas · August 2020

Ishmael said:

I think, the problem is that linux doesn't support HDD controller used in this laptop. Therefore, this problem doesn't have a solution.

Simga1986 said:

Hi!!

I have the latest BIOS and with it only NVMe gets detected in AHCI mode. My other Sata 2.5" SSD is still invisible.

To move to the AHCI mode, go to "Main Tab" then press ctrl+s. Change Optane without RAID to AHCI.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help for HDD :-(

ngrpthomas said:

Hi, I have the EXACT same problem on my Acer laptop that I bought a few days ago! I don't have an SSD - only have a 1TB HDD.
I disabled secure boot, fast boot, changed controller mode to AHCI etc.

All I get are the same results as shown in the thread! I need to run linux on it for work, is there any way to fix this?

I think, there is the only way to fix our problem: connect somehow with developers of some linux distro and ask them to add support of hdd controller used in this Acer laptop.

I don't think it's the controller. Because it was recognized in the linux when we used `lspci | grep SATA`.

ngrpthomas · August 2020

@Ishmael have you tried to wipe the entire HDD using a fresh windows installation and then try to install Linux?

ngrpthomas · August 2020

Ishmael said:

I think, the problem is that linux doesn't support HDD controller used in this laptop. Therefore, this problem doesn't have a solution.

Simga1986 said:

Hi!!

I have the latest BIOS and with it only NVMe gets detected in AHCI mode. My other Sata 2.5" SSD is still invisible.

To move to the AHCI mode, go to "Main Tab" then press ctrl+s. Change Optane without RAID to AHCI.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help for HDD :-(

ngrpthomas said:

Hi, I have the EXACT same problem on my Acer laptop that I bought a few days ago! I don't have an SSD - only have a 1TB HDD.
I disabled secure boot, fast boot, changed controller mode to AHCI etc.

All I get are the same results as shown in the thread! I need to run linux on it for work, is there any way to fix this?

I think, there is the only way to fix our problem: connect somehow with developers of some linux distro and ask them to add support of hdd controller used in this Acer laptop.

Hey, have you tried wiping the entire disk with Windows and then trying Linux again?

Ishmael · August 2020

ngrpthomas said:

I don't think it's the controller. Because it was recognized in the linux when we used `lspci | grep SATA`.

As I understand, my laptop have two sata controllers: HDD and SSD. Linux should recognize both of them but recognizes only one. I'm pretty shure it is SSD controller (because similar ACER laptop model with SSD drive doesn't have such problems with linux installation). That is why I think that linux doesn't recognize HDD controller and, therefore, doesn't support it.