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It seems many people have problems with this but I didnt see my case in specific.

I have a laptop with SSD+HDD. The SSD has 2 partitions, 1st partition has Windows 10 (that boots in UEFI mode only), second partition is empty, which I want to install Ubuntu.

Im using YUMI to boot into Ubuntu and here madness starts:

  • If I boot in UEFI, Ubuntu live doesnt find the SSD. sudo fdsik -l shows only sda (my HDD) and sdb (my USB stick), its the same for cfdisk, df, parted, etc. Plus, in /dev there is only sda and sdb. Because of this I cant install Ubuntu in my SSD.

  • If I boot in legacy, Ubuntu live finds my SSD. sda(HDD), sdb(usb stick) and nvme0n1(my SSD). But then when I try to install Ubuntu side by side with Windows it doesnt identify Windows as a current OS, presumably because Windows was first installed in UEFI and now in legacy I cant boot in it?

Well, so 1) Why doesnt Ubuntu recognize my SSD in UEFI? 2) If I can only do it in Legacy, should I reinstall Windows in Legacy (I really wanted to avoid this)? 3) What is the best option here?

PS. The ubuntu I downloaded is 16.04.1

EDIT: So here goes more information about my system.

  • System: Alienware 17 R3
  • BIOS Version: 1.3.6
  • SSD info: PM951 NVMe SAMSUNG 256GB
  • SATA Operation: RAID (the other not-selected option is AHCI).

Boot-Repair report is in: http://pastebin.com/HSzTZfSz

EDIT 2: I changed the SATA operation from RAID to AHCI to test and, sure enough, Windows 10 doesnt boot anymore, but weirdly enough, Ubuntu live now recognizes my SSD, and even more weird, it identifies Windows as a current SO and will allow me to install alongside it. So:

  • 1) I understand that if I want my drives to work in any flavor of RAID (0,1,5) I will need to leave as RAID, which is not my case, at least for now.

  • 2) I would be ok with AHCI I think but how do I make Windows boot without reinstalling it? If I install Ubuntu alongside Windows, will it fix the bootloader? Do I have to run Repair-boot tool?

  • 3) What is really going on here? Doesnt Ubuntu have RAID drives for my laptop? Any ideas?

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  • Please add more information to your Question. What is your computer-model? You may run boot-repair and create a boot-info-summary, don't do recommended repair, it will not help. Make sure to boot in UEFI-mode to run boot-repair. Edit your question and add information about your machine and URL to boot-info-summary to your question.
    – mook765
    Sep 28, 2016 at 3:32
  • Do you have drives in AHCI mode, not RAID nor IDE, nor some Intel thing? Have you tried partitioning in advance with gparted (version 24 or later) and then using Something Else to use those partitions?
    – oldfred
    Sep 28, 2016 at 3:34
  • Thank you in advance mook and oldfred. Boot-repair report is indicated in the EDITed part of first post, also, more information about the machine is there. Oldfred, its RAID. My SSD is already partitioned, some 100GB of the disk I reserved for Ubuntu, the problem is that when I go to Something Else, the partitions from my SSD are not there, in fact the drive is not there (in UEFI, but its there if tis legacy)
    – Adriano_epifas
    Sep 29, 2016 at 3:02
  • You may have heard about the Lenovo and Windows Signature Systems that use Intel RAID. Not particularly a Windows issue, but Intel & its version of RAID. There are many types of RAID that Linux tries to support. mjg59.dreamwidth.org/44694.html Some vendors have suggested newest UEFI/BIOS. Others have no answer. Not sure if just turning off RAID works. If you turn off RAID, be sure to have the full backup of Windows.Kernel 4.6 has Dell & Alienware improvements including 9350 phoronix.com/… Alienware is part of Dell.
    – oldfred
    Sep 29, 2016 at 3:33
  • oldfred, as you hinted, changing from RAID to AHCI made Ubuntu recognize my SSD, although Windows doesnt boot like this. Im trying to figure out what to do now.
    – Adriano_epifas
    Oct 1, 2016 at 2:53

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Change the SATA settings in the UEFI setup utility from RAID mode to AHCI mode, and use UEFI for both Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04 which are installed alongside each other as a dual boot, but in Windows you have to first install AHCI drivers. Windows AHCI instructions: https://askubuntu.com/a/963100/ & https://askubuntu.com/a/1148150/.

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