Installer cannot find drives

[golddustpeak]

Hello,
I'm attempting to install Debian on a second sdd so I can have Windows on one sdd and Debian on another and choose which to use at the time of booting my Dell 8940 with UEFI.

I've made a boot-able usb stick with the Debian installer (debian-10.9.0-amd64-netinst.iso) that I downloaded from the Debian site and installed with Rufus.

I can run the installer but when I get to the point of setting up the disk It cannot find any of the three drives on my machine it only sees my usb stick.

Where do i go from here?

TNX

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Check the firmware ("BIOS") settings for an option to enable AHCI mode for the drives.

Note that Rufus only works for Debian ISO images if the "DD" mode [sic] is selected. See the Debian CD FAQ for the officially recommended software in respect of ISO burning (hint: not Rufus).

[golddustpeak]

I checked the firmware (BIOS) settings and did not find any options for the AHCI mode (or any disk mode).
Just for drill I downloaded the approved software and rewrote my ISO image to the usb stick.

As before the system booted and attempted to do a net install.

As before the installer got as far as the Partition disks section and only found my usb stick (none of my 3 other drives appeared).

Now what?

TNX

[p.H]

What kind of SSD are these ? SATA, NVMe ?
What does "lspci" show ?

[golddustpeak]

I have one NVMe drive and 2 SATA drives.

lspci shows the following:
Host Bridge
PCI-PCI Bridge (multiple locations)
Display Controller
Unknown Data input system (multiple locations)
System Hardware
USB Controller
RAM Controller
Serial Bus Controller (multiple locations)
Communications Controller
Raid Controller
ISA Bridge
Multimedia device (multiple locations)
VGA Controller
Ethernet Controller

[p.H]

The NVMe SSD should appear as "Non-volatile memory controller" or so.
The SATA controller appears to be in RAID mode but Linux may be unable to use it in this mode. AHCI mode would be better.
Also, setting the the SATA controller in RAID mode may hide the NVMe SSD.
You should double check the BIOS settings for any RAID option and disable it.
What kind of chipset is it ?

[golddustpeak]

If I disable the RAID mode then I can no longer boot from my NVMe drive that has Windows.
I did finally find the AHCI mode setting but as I said windows will no longer boot with any thing but the RAID configuration.

My specification sheet from Dell says that the chip-set is an Intel H470 but my device manager only shows lots of Intel controllers etc. under System Devices.

[p.H]

At least did that make the drives visible in the Debian installer ?

Windows not being able to boot after changing the SATA mode is a well known side-effect. You can search the web for the known fix, or reinstall Windows if you prefer to.

[golddustpeak]

We're getting closer.
With AHCI enabled the installer can now see my three drives and usb stick.
I was able to finish the installation and reboot into Debian.
It started with the usual options for boot.
At the time of boot I see a lot of information scroll by and disappear.
Then the system hangs.
At another attempt I saw an error 8086: 06bc

[p.H]

Did you try to boot in rescue mode (in "advanced options for Debian" submenu) ?
How recent is that machine ?

[golddustpeak]

Booting in the rescue menu causes the same symptoms.
I cannot get into a command prompt to view the system logs.
I saw the 8086: 06bc error message, 8086 :06bc is the PVI Bridge.

This machine is weeks old and is the first pre-made computer since my first TRS80 and ap0ple II.
I had reservations about purchasing a pre-made pre-loaded computer (lack of my control) but did it anyway.

[p.H]

Booting in the rescue menu causes the same symptoms.

The display should be different. More verbose, not disappear.

I saw the 8086: 06bc error message, 8086 :06bc is the PVI Bridge.

Do you mean the PCI bridge ? What is the complete and exact error message ?

If the machine is recent, it may require a newer kernel than the one in Debian 10 buster.

[ashishkumarji]

Driver is unavailable error, a missing or corrupted driver is the most probable reason behind the problem. can anyone tell me how can i fix it

[arochester]

@ashishkumarji

Please don't stick your problem onto someone else's thread.

Please start your own thread instead.

EXACTLY what does the error message say and where does it occur.

[golddustpeak]

WOW.... It appears that my note taking is no better than my typing and proof reading.

In the rescue mode several pages of information scrolls by ending with the last bit remaining on screen.
Looking through what remains on the screen I see no error messages or problems.
Also the message You are in the rescue mode is there but issuing any command causes it to hang.

Yes the occasional error message I see is for the PCI Bridge and it looks more like this:
pcieport 0000:00:ic.0 reporting corrected error
pcieport 0000:00:ic.0 reporting corrected error
pcieport 0000:00:ic.0 device [8086: 06bc] error status/mask = 00001000/00002000
[12] Timeout
Pressing any hey will then hang the system.

I'm beginning to think that as the machine is only two or three weeks old you are correct and Debian 10 (Buster) will just not play on it.

So where do I go from here?
Look for a different distribution of Linux that will work on this machine or wait for a new release of Debian?

BTY thanks ever so much for all your help with this issue!