I am trying to install Ubuntu Desktop 18.04 LTS along side Windows 10, but it's not detecting my Samsung EVO 960 PCIe NVME SSD(500 GB). The same is visible and useable from Windows 10 Professional. What could be the issue?
Rather than directly installing. first i went into the "try without install mode" and opened gparted…gparted showed SATA SSD, other hard drives, USB drive but not the Samsung PCIe NVME SSD.
Anything else i need to have in my bootable ISO image to detect the PCIe NVME SSD? My BIOS mode is UEFI(that's the one via which Windows has been installed), is that the issue as mentioned here?
Mine is Dell XPS 8930 Desktop – Intel Core i7-8700(6 Cores Processor with 64 GB RAM, Windows is installed on SATA SSD and I am trying to install ubuntu Linux 18.04 LTS on PCIe NVME SSD).
Edit 1
Rather than trying Ubuntu, I went ahead with the install but end up with some bugs…Ubuntu was not able to detect Windows 10 installation on my computer…
…Seems that 18.04 LTS is somewhat too early to try it out.
Edit 2
Googled on Internet for Dell XPS desktop/laptop specific issues and found these links:
link1
link2
link3
Went into BIOS(F2) and changed the
SATA setting to from RAID On to AHCI
BIOS warned at the time of saving this setting that either I may not be able to boot my Operating System(Windows 10) or I need to re-install it. I went ahead…couple of times…restart at the BIOS level…Operating system never came up…finally BIOS went into the health check and recovery mode…i reverted back the setting to RAID On and at least Windows 10 is able to boot.
Dell's BIOS doesn't seems to be that easy to work with for dual boot Linux or PCIe NVME drive it seems…will try it later during the weekend.
Edit3
Somehow Ubuntu installer was not able to detect Windows 10. Googled it further and then changed the BIOS back to secure boot enabled and UEFI enabled. Now Ubuntu installer was able to detect Windows 10. Installation happened successfully on my shinning Samsung PCIe NVME SSD without any issues.
Best Answer
Well after a lot of google search I came across this post. The issue was at the BIOS level. In case of Dell desktops and laptops - one has to set the SATA mode to AHCI rather than the default Raid On. If you don't follow the above post - your machine won't boot Windows 10 as the AHCI driver is by default not installed. That's why one need to go into the safemode first then make the changes in BIOS and then disable the safemode. Being in the safemode - it installs the AHCI drivers via which O/S can talk to the drives. After this I booted via the live USB and i can see the Samsung PCIe NVME SSD being visible from the gparted.