Re: BIOS Can Not Find Disk
On 12/04/2017 12:17 AM, David Christensen wrote:
On 12/03/17 13:44, Dan Norton wrote:
On 12/02/2017 02:35 PM, David Christensen wrote:
I'm not making progress with this PC so I'll probably abandon GPT.
The disk is 1T and it was handled by the extended partition scheme
before this experiment and it probably can again. I still want to do
LVM and multiboot a few systems though.
[...]
When I mount /dev/sda1, I see:
# mount -o ro /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
# mount | grep /mnt/sda1
/dev/sda1 on /mnt/sda1 type vfat
(ro,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro)
# df /dev/sda1
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 973952 188 973764 1% /mnt/sda1
# tree -a /mnt/sda1
/mnt/sda1
`-- EFI
`-- debian
`-- grubx64.efi
# ls -l /mnt/sda1/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 178688 Dec 2 23:33
/mnt/sda1/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi
# file /mnt/sda1/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi
/mnt/sda1/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi: PE32+ executable (EFI application)
x86-64 (stripped to external PDB), for MS Windows
I can run various LVM commands to confirm that d-i/partman did what I
told it to do.
The next time I try this, I think I'll go the opposite extreme, feed a
blank disk to d-i, let partman automagically format the whole disk,
and see if GRUB installs, if the installation completes without error,
if the disk boots, and what the SSD contains.
This post is being sent from a fresh netinst:
dan@mydeb:~$ uname -v
#1 SMP Debian 3.16.43-2+deb8u5 (2017-09-19)
root@mydeb:/# 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: dos
Disk identifier: 0x29f6f73a
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 2048 976895 974848 476M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
/dev/sda2 976896 16601087 15624192 7.5G 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 16603134 532223999 515620866 245.9G 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 16603136 141600767 124997632 59.6G 8e Linux LVM
/dev/sda6 141602816 266600447 124997632 59.6G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 266602496 391600127 124997632 59.6G 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 391602176 516599807 124997632 59.6G 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 516601856 532223999 15622144 7.5G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
[...]
As you can see, the partitioning scheme is primary/logical. Needed to
get some work done. I'm in the process of restoring stuff from backup,
but at least the saved emails are OK.
The installer was involved in all partitioning. At the start of this
thread and another, fdisk had been used to define sda1 and sda2. This
time I tried not to over-think it.
First, manual partitioning in the installer was used to remove the LVs
and VGs. Then the physical partitions were removed, resulting in 1TB
free space (the whole disk). There were lots of false starts, but I
learned that you can reboot the installer and run it repeated through
partitioning and eventually get things corrected. I lost count.
Partitioning dread subsided and I began to relax.
Next, primary partitions were defined for sda1 and sda2. Logical
partitions for sda5-9. The installer automagically did sda3 Extended.
When it complained that there was no EFI, sda1 was removed and the EFI
put in its place.
Now you are looking at this and thinking, "Boy, that is really sloppy.
Wasting disk space like that." That's OK, I don't mind. Obviously sda1
is much bigger than needed and sda2 is not used at all but it boots
*normally* at last. Onward to installing another Debian and I may try
GPT again, too.
Many thanks for your help, everyone.
- Dan
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