Dell Precision 7910 + Ubuntu installation

Question

Hi all, We recently received a Dell Precision T7910 machine. We intended to make a fresh install of Ubuntu Server Edition. However, we got into some issue with the detection of the HDD at boot. I would like to add that all the installation processes were performed with the following BIOS parameters: UEFI boot, SecureBoot off, compatibility Legacy ON, RAID0 off. We also reseat the disks several time between the different install. We needed to have RAID1 with 2 HDDs (system file '/') + 2 HDDs (some data '/data'). We intended to install Ubuntu Server 12.04.5 LTS, since that it should be for sure supported. However, during the installation, the partition tool do not find the HDD. Thus we tried the same install with a Ubuntu Server 15.04 in which the disk have been detected and the install went more smoothly. However, we got an issue at the rebooting with 'Alert! No Hard Drive found' To be sure, that it was not a problem of RAID, we install Ubuntu Server 15.04 only on a single HDD without any RAID. No issue in the install but same result at boot. Checking the bios, in boot sequence, 'ubuntu' item is present as UEFI sequence. To ensure that the issue was not the version, we install Ubuntu Server 14.04.3 LTS and same results. I would like to know if anybody has experience equivalent scenario. I do not get why the HDDs are detected in the version 12.04.5 LTS and detected in the latter version. Then, is there is any firmware or specific BIOS version to install to get Ubuntu work? Also I am wondering to know why only ubuntu 12.04 LTS is officialy supported for a such recent computer made of common piece of hardware. Hope to find a resolution at these problems. -- Guillaume Lemaitre

beamermt79 · Answer

I'm not really familiar with Ubuntu much, however my first thing would be to turn off UEFI and use legacy BIOS and see if that works.  UEFI is still 'newish' in the Windows world so its possible Ubuntu doesn't fully support it as yet?

NathanielBB · Answer

Did you end up solving this issue?

glemaitre · Answer

Yes,

In fact the option in the BIOS was not to activate or not the hardware RAID but was to activate or not the controller of the disk.

So of course, if you deactivate the chips which manage the disks, this is working not that good after ;)

ikarasalo · Answer

Which of the Ubuntu releases did you succeed installing on the T7910 ? My attempts to install 12.04.2 and 12.04.5 both fail by 'no disc drive was detected'.

speedstep · Answer

14.04 is the new LTS Release. http://partners.ubuntu.com/dell

ikarasalo · Answer

I just installed Ubuntu 14.04 on my Dell Precision 7910. The system can boot, but only by the two-step procedure of first choosing the trouble shooting mode from the boot menu, and there simply choose 'resume', by which the goes into multi-user mode without X. I can then login and do 'startx'.

Attempting a normal boot, however, results in the system hanging, seemingly indefinitely, with a black screen.

glemaitre · Answer

I have the version 14.04.1

If it is like me you can have to issue. The first one is that you need to resit the drives.
Then, it is the matter to no disable the chip in the bios which manage the disk.

So check that the RAID manager is activated.

glemaitre · Answer

What do you think about a grub issue or where the master boot is located? Do you have any way to know about that? What is the partitioning of the disks?

speedstep · Answer

Grub and MBR are Long Gone from systems. Thats why you cant boot an MSDOS diskette anymore either. AHCI is the requirement to boot from hard drive and the SATA optical drives.

UEFI Does not allow anything but 64 bit versions of software including Linux. Ubuntu 12.04.5 works fine with UEFI and Secure Boot whereas older versions do not.

14.04 is the new Long Term Support version.

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