I am attempting to install RockyLinux 8.8 on a Dell OptiPlex 740. It was originally running Windows 10 on an HDD with the bios version 2.6. I upgraded the bios to the latest 2.8, turned off fastboot, checked to see that RAID mode was off, and changed the boot order to start with a USB. Used rufus to create a USB of the live Rocky 8.8 image, started up my computer, and everything was working fine except there are no drives visible for install. I tried other (known working) HDDs, reformatted them, turned on RAID mode, tried HDDs that already have rocky8.8 installed, none of them are visible in the install window. Anything I plug into a USB port is visible. Any ideas?
RockyLinux install on OptiPlex 740 not showing SATA HDD
- Thread starter moksh
- Start date
It only has a RAID or no RAID option, I have seen on some other forums that having RAID on activates AHCI. I can't confirm this as I haven't seen it in any official documentation.
I am using dd mode on my install USB that has the live image
Hmm... Hopefully, someone else has an idea. I recently had no issues with a 7040. Someone might have a suggestion.
Some thoughts come to mind with this issue of "no drives visible". Some of the following may be relevant, some not, so it may or may not be useful.
First check the BIOS/UEFI. If the disk can't be seen from displays in the BIOS/UEFI, then it can't load the bootloader.
If the hard drive is not seen in the BIO/UEFI, check the hardware connections in the machine.
If, as mentioned in post #1, a number of known-to-work hard drives were all invisible, what were they invisible to? Was it the BIOS/UEFI? Or was it when simply booting the machine?
If the BIOS/UEFI can see the disks, but the booting cannot, then there may be a menu item in the BIOS/UEFI that needs to be altered. Some BIOS/UEFIs have a menu selection somewhere in them which differentiates between an MS operating system, and others which it may refer to as Legacy, or Unix, or Other etc. If there's an item like that, it needs to be changed away from MS.
As well as fastboot being disabled, it's best to disable secure boot as well to simplify matters.
Was the usb used for installation verified by the checksum? One needs to have some certainty that the installation media is valid.
Is the distro installing in BIOS mode or EFI mode? EFI mode needs a small partition of its own with a filesystem which is usually fat32, and using GPT partitioning.
If the BIOS/UEFI does see the hard disk then there may be bootloader issues. You can check whether there is actually an installed system on the hard drive, including all partitions. You can run the live usb, mount the hard drive, navigate to the mount point and inspect the filesystem. If the loaded installation is there, you may be able to avoid a re-installation. It may rather be a matter of installing or re-installing the grub bootloader, which can be done from the live usb disk. Here's a link providing an example of using the live disk in "troubleshoot" mode to re-install the bootloader for RHEL, which should be adaptable to Rocky:
www.2daygeek.com
First check the BIOS/UEFI. If the disk can't be seen from displays in the BIOS/UEFI, then it can't load the bootloader.
If the hard drive is not seen in the BIO/UEFI, check the hardware connections in the machine.
If, as mentioned in post #1, a number of known-to-work hard drives were all invisible, what were they invisible to? Was it the BIOS/UEFI? Or was it when simply booting the machine?
If the BIOS/UEFI can see the disks, but the booting cannot, then there may be a menu item in the BIOS/UEFI that needs to be altered. Some BIOS/UEFIs have a menu selection somewhere in them which differentiates between an MS operating system, and others which it may refer to as Legacy, or Unix, or Other etc. If there's an item like that, it needs to be changed away from MS.
As well as fastboot being disabled, it's best to disable secure boot as well to simplify matters.
Was the usb used for installation verified by the checksum? One needs to have some certainty that the installation media is valid.
Is the distro installing in BIOS mode or EFI mode? EFI mode needs a small partition of its own with a filesystem which is usually fat32, and using GPT partitioning.
If the BIOS/UEFI does see the hard disk then there may be bootloader issues. You can check whether there is actually an installed system on the hard drive, including all partitions. You can run the live usb, mount the hard drive, navigate to the mount point and inspect the filesystem. If the loaded installation is there, you may be able to avoid a re-installation. It may rather be a matter of installing or re-installing the grub bootloader, which can be done from the live usb disk. Here's a link providing an example of using the live disk in "troubleshoot" mode to re-install the bootloader for RHEL, which should be adaptable to Rocky:
How to Recover Corrupted GRUB 2 Bootloader in RHEL 8 | 2DayGeek
This guide explains how to recover a corrupted GRUB 2 Bootloader in Red Hat (RHEL) 8 system using the Anaconda Rescue Mode from installation DVD/ISO.
www.2daygeek.com
