nvme booting on legacy mobo?
i see a lot online about being able to boot from an nvme ssd on a legacy mobo by things like using a boot manager and/or moving boot elements around. i've not been able to get any of this to work as yet.
my system is a ga-x79-up4 mobo running ubuntu studio w/kde. system drive is a sata 2.5" ssd. i have a samsung ssd 980 nvme mounted on a pcie card as the mobo has no m.2 slots. it currently has a fresh manjaro install on it as a test. when i installed manjaro, i removed the main system drive (ubuntu studio) so as not to do anything bad to it. the manjaro install usb flash drive found the nvme drive and installed to it without issue, as near as i can tell. the ubuntu studio system is also able to see and use the nvme drive. i just can't boot from it. when i reinsert my ubuntu studio drive and boot into ubuntu studio, i am able to run grub-mkconfig and it does find the nvme drive and insert it into the grub menu. when i reboot, however, while the grub menu does show manjaro, it does not boot, displaying a message that a kernel must be loaded first. i've tried every combination of uefi and legacy boot settings i can think of in the bios. i can only guess that this is pointing to the full ubuntu system's ability to find and use the nvme drive but the boot system's inability. in other words, when the full system is up, there is enough resource, like drivers, to find and use the nvme but, during the boot process, when there are more meager resources available to the system, the nvme cannot be utilized. admittedly, i know almost nothing about how all of this works but am seeing enough online about people successfully booting such a system to think that, if i can just find the right path to navigate a setup, i could get this to work on my system as well. any help is much appreciated. babag (btw, i can't just upgrade right now as changing resources like a mobo would cascade into having to upgrade a lot of other components as well.) |
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+1 to mrmazda's response - a lot of the stuff you mention seeing online likely relies on either a persistent USB device holding a bootloader or booting from a SATA disk as you've already tried (and using the NVMe device as additional storage, like putting /home on it or getting adventerous with symlinks). There would be no way to have *only* the NVMe device in that board and boot from it without BIOS/UEFI support, and I'm guessing that's not available for that specific board. I've read about modified BIOSes for X58-based boards to toy with NVMe, so perhaps such exists for X79 (which is newer), but I'd proceed very cautiously with modified firmware (well, any firmware flash really) because the potential to brick the hardware is real (even if everything is 'on the level' its still possible to get a bad flash (say, for example, you experience a power outage)), and then you're in that 'cascade replacement' situation.
Personally I would probably just integrate the NVMe device as additional storage - you can install applications and hold data on it all the same once the machine is booted, and I can't imagine there would be any significantly measurable difference in 'boot time' (such an awful metric) between the SATA SSD and the NVMe device. |
thanks to you both for taking the time to try to help. much appreciated.
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https://www.newegg.com/crucial-bx500...82E16820156231 this drive only has ubuntu studio on it, as a self contained system, including my storage and /home. i normally run with only this drive in the system. Quote:
thanks again, babag |
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sudo parted -l |
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As far as. If the device when partitioned. Right you partitoned it RIGHT! then you set it bootable right. Quote:
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/dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID="D7D2-C96F" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="bb6dc2f8-6a26-eb40-9a15-9cd8d0d218dc" <-- ufi partiton and partion it and set a bootable partition. Then format it to your favorite files system. Trust me ubuntu will see it wipe it and do what you want. Quote:
Until you figure out whats going on in your boot configuration. last but not least set to auto on legacy boot. |
Reading your problem it seems clear the bios is not able to access the nvme device. Whether that is the card it is on or the nvme device itself, legacy bios was ancient when nvme devices were developed. I think you are stuck unless you can get a 3rd party bootloader that is able to load the drivers needed to access the nvme before it starts to load the OS.
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wow. lot to chew over here but it all sounds promising. will take me a little time to absorb all of this. will post tomorrow with the various bits of info requested.
thank you all so much, babag |
would this work? can i try booting from a usb stick instead of from the ubuntu studio ssd? i'm a little nervous about modifying my working system drive and the things that i'm seeing here seem like they might be transferable to another bootable device that might be safer for my existing system. i'm thinking i'd have to copy the /boot dirctory from either the ubuntu studio drive or the manjaro drive to the stick and then follow the instructions i've been getting so far. now for the questions about those instructions.
@mrmazda, sudo fdisk -l = : Code:
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 931.53 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors Code:
# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update Code:
https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/Pz9jdrXS6s/ Quote:
@lovemeslk, sudo blkid /dev/nvme0n1p(1 and 2) = Code:
/dev/nvme0n1p1: LABEL_FATBOOT="NO_LABEL" LABEL="NO_LABEL" UUID="EC2C-395E" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="846a2397-41ff-4c45-b384-7e54ce80f160" Quote:
@tofino_surfer, thanks. Quote:
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thanks again to you all. you've given me cause for optimism! babag |
this might be relevant. i think i managed to copy /boot from the manjaro nvme drive onto a usb stick. here are a couple of bits of info regarding that:
sudo fdisk -l now includes this for the usb stick: Code:
Disk /dev/sdb: 3.86 GiB, 4126146560 bytes, 8058880 sectors Code:
https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/H54H7Gcbsj/ trying a reboot with just the usb stick and manjaro nvme drive in the system brings up an error that the media is not bootable. thanks! |
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If you wanted to use a usb stick you would have to install a linux distro onto a usb stick the same way you would install Linux to a SSD or HDD as it's just a block device. A Linux installation on a usb stick would have a permanent filesystem that you could modify. You would need a second empty usb stick and then install Linux to it possibly using your existing live usb. |
thanks, tofino_surfer. i don't quite follow this and am afraid i may have been unclear in my descriptions of what i'm trying to do with the usb stick.
people make reference to 'initiating the boot process' in regard to usb booting. the idea would be to have, at least for now, just two devices in the system: the manjaro nvme, which the mobo cannot boot from, and a usb stick, which the mobo should be able to boot from, to initiate the boot process and call up the nvme. since the nvme cannot boot, i would hope to copy the manjaro /boot directory to the usb stick. my system is capable of booting from a usb stick as that's how i installed manjaro in the first place. the only thing on the usb stick currently is the /boot directory. if i've read things correctly, i need that /boot directory, the manjaro kernel, and initramfs. here is ls: Code:
ls /media/babag/BOOTLINUX/boot/ thanks, babag |
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It is possible to make a dedicated grub boot usb stick. There are many webpages that describe this procedure. However the simplest way as I described in my post is to create a lightweight Linux installation on a blank usb stick. The installer will install grub and make the stick bootable. |
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