Re: BIOS Can Not Find Disk
On 12/01/2017 08:54 PM, David Christensen wrote:
On 12/01/17 10:50, Dan Norton wrote:
Maybe this is the wrong forum, but please bear with me a little bit.
This post was sent from a desktop with jessie installed. The problem
is it will not boot normally. Network booting has been disabled in
the NVRAM setup. After POST there is a one-liner which says it can
not find disk.
Please post the *exact* contents of the console screen.
ERROR:No boot disk has been detected or the disk has failed.
It can be booted with a supergrub2 cd, however.
# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 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: A615A904-0620-459F-BF44-5E53E54FDF24
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 411647 409600 200M BIOS boot
/dev/sda2 411648 16783359 16371712 7.8G Linux swap
/dev/sda3 16783360 151001087 134217728 64G Linux LVM
/dev/sda4 151001088 285218815 134217728 64G Linux LVM
/dev/sda5 285218816 419436543 134217728 64G Linux LVM
/dev/sda6 419436544 553654271 134217728 64G Linux LVM
/dev/sda7 553654272 1953525134 1399870863 667.5G Linux filesystem
This post is being written with Debian 8 installed on /dev/sda3, above.
How did you create the contents of this disk?
fdisk for sda1 and sda2, then installer for sda3 through sda7. The
installer was from Debian 8.9 netinst on cd.
What are your LVM PV's, VG's, and LV's?
# lvm pvdisplay
--- Physical volume ---
PV Name /dev/sda3
VG Name debian8-vg
PV Size 64.00 GiB / not usable 4.00 MiB
Allocatable yes
PE Size 4.00 MiB
Total PE 16383
Free PE 9399
Allocated PE 6984
PV UUID vyN3Lt-vGyw-lVZi-RDBG-NoXL-nqlH-k9eolf
"/dev/sda4" is a new physical volume of "64.00 GiB"
--- NEW Physical volume ---
PV Name /dev/sda4
VG Name
PV Size 64.00 GiB
Allocatable NO
PE Size 0
Total PE 0
Free PE 0
Allocated PE 0
PV UUID QqDROv-x2rg-3C3z-Lkdw-U95u-86BT-Jzrc6O
"/dev/sda5" is a new physical volume of "64.00 GiB"
--- NEW Physical volume ---
PV Name /dev/sda5
VG Name
PV Size 64.00 GiB
Allocatable NO
PE Size 0
Total PE 0
Free PE 0
Allocated PE 0
PV UUID oOQuaB-qAIu-q3DW-1h0B-rKA0-q1Z4-oznScr
"/dev/sda6" is a new physical volume of "64.00 GiB"
--- NEW Physical volume ---
PV Name /dev/sda6
VG Name
PV Size 64.00 GiB
Allocatable NO
PE Size 0
Total PE 0
Free PE 0
Allocated PE 0
PV UUID hHiVce-cC0V-u7zz-tqjU-5Rdd-nPza-BlPMQz
# lvm vgdisplay
--- Volume group ---
VG Name debian8-vg
System ID
Format lvm2
Metadata Areas 1
Metadata Sequence No 17
VG Access read/write
VG Status resizable
MAX LV 0
Cur LV 4
Open LV 4
Max PV 0
Cur PV 1
Act PV 1
VG Size 64.00 GiB
PE Size 4.00 MiB
Total PE 16383
Alloc PE / Size 6984 / 27.28 GiB
Free PE / Size 9399 / 36.71 GiB
VG UUID lfqcVE-yP6G-IeYF-zHYt-jc60-Jzas-c1fr5p
# lvm lvdisplay
--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/debian8-vg/root
LV Name root
VG Name debian8-vg
LV UUID Eh9QwL-dTlm-s8H5-5FYN-CxBl-wnvn-om3Pbx
LV Write Access read/write
LV Creation host, time debian8, 2017-11-20 12:32:12 -0500
LV Status available
# open 1
LV Size 9.31 GiB
Current LE 2384
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 254:0
--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/debian8-vg/home
LV Name home
VG Name debian8-vg
LV UUID NugOd8-PRZM-9B1e-n0Ut-MWuB-Svso-Cfyxoe
LV Write Access read/write
LV Creation host, time debian8, 2017-11-20 12:33:08 -0500
LV Status available
# open 1
LV Size 9.31 GiB
Current LE 2384
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 254:1
--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/debian8-vg/tmp
LV Name tmp
VG Name debian8-vg
LV UUID Met5mR-J5iz-KFvz-v58s-Y0B0-J2p0-v9pv8q
LV Write Access read/write
LV Creation host, time debian8, 2017-11-20 12:34:09 -0500
LV Status available
# open 1
LV Size 284.00 MiB
Current LE 71
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 254:2
--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/debian8-vg/var
LV Name var
VG Name debian8-vg
LV UUID Wey2Pw-NO64-FjKH-Zvva-BJkV-ZlKE-SNmcjF
LV Write Access read/write
LV Creation host, time debian8, 2017-11-20 12:35:22 -0500
LV Status available
# open 1
LV Size 8.38 GiB
Current LE 2145
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 254:3
What are the corresponding file systems and where are their mount points?
What bootloader was installed -- LILO, GRUB, GRUB2, whatever? And, where?
GRUB2 to sda1.
Apparently, BIOS does not see a bootable device.
Are you sure? How did you reach that conclusion?
ERROR:No boot disk... does not look like something I expect from GRUB2,
but I haven't searched the source code.
...
HP Pro 3400 Series MT
https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/HP-Pro-3400-Microtower-PC/5160137
The above url was used to search for bios updates. None found, as stated.
HP Diagnostics were run; all passed, including S.M.A.R.T.
BIOS version 7.16 dated 03/23/2012 with no update found.
How can /dev/sda1 be defined so that the bios will see it as bootable?
On 12/01/17 13:23, Dan Norton wrote:
> On 12/01/2017 02:29 PM, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
>> Le 01/12/2017 à 19:57, Greg Wooledge a écrit :
>>> On Fri, Dec 01, 2017 at 01:50:12PM -0500, Dan Norton wrote:
>>>> Disklabel type: gpt
>>>
>>>> Apparently, BIOS does not see a bootable device. In the dim past,
fdisk
>>>> could set a partition as "active", which was its euphemism for
>>>> "bootable".
>>>> However now:
>>>
>>> GPT disk labels don't have active/bootable partitions.
>>
>> Yes they do. They even have two kinds of them.
>>
>> - Partition attribute bit 2 = legacy BIOS bootable.
>> It is supposed to be equivalent to the boot/active flag in partition
>> entries of the MBR. I just wonder how a BIOS would use that, though.
>>
>> - The good old boot/active flag of the GPT protective partition entry
>> in the MBR. Some BIOSes require it to boot a drive regardless of the
>> presence of a GPT disk label. It can be set with parted which
>> considers it as a disk flag (disk_set pmbr_boot on), or by fdisk by
>> forcing it to use the protective DOS/MBR disk label (-t dos).
>>
>
> This really sounds good. I could not figure out how to get at the
> protective mbr and turn on that bit. Here's what I tried, after doing a
> backup:
>
> # fdisk -t dos /dev/sda
Your original post indicated a GPT partition table. Forcing an MS-DOS
MBR partition type means the tool will be looking at fake information
that your GPT formatting tool laid down on disk ("protective MBR", or
some such; I avoid these complexities.)
A new empty GPT partition table was created by fdisk prior to install.
Selection "g" under "Create a new label". Avoiding complexities is high
on my list of desirables.
> ...
>
> Command (m for help): m
>
> Help:
>
> DOS (MBR)
> a toggle a bootable flag
> b edit nested BSD disklabel
> c toggle the dos compatibility flag
>
> ...
>
> Command (m for help): a
> Selected partition 1
> The bootable flag on partition 1 is enabled now.
>
> Command (m for help): p
> Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 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: dos
> Disk identifier: 0x3f90eec3
>
> Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
> /dev/sda1 * 1 1953525167 1953525167 931.5G ee GPT
>
> Command (m for help): w
> The partition table has been altered.
> Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
> Re-reading the partition table failed.: Device or resource busy
>
> The kernel still uses the old table. The new table will be used at the
> next reboot or after you run partprobe(8) or kpartx(8).
>
> # partprobe -s /dev/sda
Manipulating the fake information is unlikely to produce a desirable
result. I would undo those changes.
> After removing the cd and shutting down, re-booted from power-off
> state, but unfortunately still got the "disk not found" message on a
> black screen.
See my first comment.
? Not sure which comment you are indicating.
> The PC is simply not seeing the 1T sda, which is the only disk. It's
> not even getting as far as the mbr/grub. The PC appears to be no more
> than 5 years old, based on the BIOS date, but it may be old enough to
> have a flaky UEFI. Should I abandon the use of GPT?
If you want to pursue the questions in your OP, I suspect that the
solution will involve reverting the changes you made, configuring your
firmware to see the GPT partition table, and configuring your
bootloader to find the Debian 8 /boot and/or root file systems.
There have been lots of changes as I've tried to learn how to multiboot
with LVM and GPT.
Are you referring to the "fdisk -t dos /dev/sda" change?
Not sure how to configure the firmware to see the GPT partition, beyond
Esc after power-on and selecting UEFI or boot using the defaults.
Configuring the bootloader was something I was going to do after the
disk could be found.
- Dan
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