freebsd stable - Apr 2021 - Fwd: Dell XPS 8940 SATA and NVMe disk controller not recognized

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Re: Dell XPS 8940 SATA and NVMe disk controller not recognized
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2021 17:05:59 -0500
From: Karl Dunn <kldunn at hiwaay.net>
To: Barney Wolff <barney at databus.com>

On 4/3/2021 2:37 PM, Barney Wolff wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 03, 2021 at 02:25:30PM -0500, Karl Dunn wrote:
>> I have new Dell XPS 8940 that came with Windows 10 Home installed.  I
have
>> created two partitions for FreeBSD, one on its NMVe 256GB SSD, and one
on
>> its WD 1TB HD.
>>
>> For now, I have 12.2-RELEASE-p4 GENERIC on a USB memstick, so I can do
>> some limited testing.
>>
>> FreeBSD 12.2 does not recognize the SATA/RAID controller, which I
assume
>> is resposible (in Win10) for accising both drives.
>>
>> The relevant pcoconf line for the controlleris:
>>
>>    none7 at pci0:0:23:0: class=0x010400 card=0x09c51028 chip=0x06d68086
rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
>>       vendor     = 'Intel Corporation'
>>       class      = mass storage
>>       subclass   = RAID
> 
> See if the BIOS offers a choice of configuring the controller as SATA
instead of RAID. That worked for me on an Inspiron 1180. (It also made W10
unbootable - apparently each OS occupies its own universe.)
That worked, precisely as it did for you: gpart list shows partitions 
and drives much to my expectations, and Win10 no longer boots.  I can 
boot windows by setting the BIOS config back to RAID.  That's not much 
of a pain.  Now to try installing 12.2-RELEASE on the SSD!

Thank you very much indeed!

Karl L. Dunn
kldunn at hiwaay.net

04.04.2021 5:09, Karl Dunn wrote:
>> See if the BIOS offers a choice of configuring the controller as SATA
instead of RAID. That worked for me on an Inspiron 1180. (It also made W10
unbootable - apparently each OS occupies its own universe.)
> 
> That worked, precisely as it did for you: gpart list shows partitions and
drives much to my expectations, and Win10 no longer boots.  I can boot windows
by setting the BIOS config back to RAID.  That's not much of a pain.  Now to
try installing 12.2-RELEASE on the SSD!
> 
> Thank you very much indeed!
When such host-based RAID/AHCI system came in times of Windows XP, there was a
way to make it boot Windows
with both kinds of BIOS settings. Boot to Windows in a way it normally boots -
RAID in your case -
and forcibly add a driver corresponding to PCI ids of the controller in ACHI
mode,
so Windows kernel already has it at boot time.

On Sun, Apr 4, 2021, 00:10 Karl Dunn <kldunn at hiwaay.net> wrote:
> That worked, precisely as it did for you: gpart list shows partitions
> and drives much to my expectations, and Win10 no longer boots.  I can
> boot windows by setting the BIOS config back to RAID.  That's not much
> of a pain.  Now to try installing 12.2-RELEASE on the SSD!
>
> Thank you very much indeed!
>
You may want to boot from windoze iso installer and try "fix boot
problems"
when already in SATA controller mode.

If that does not work and machine boots in UEFI mode you may want to
adjust/select the proper EFI-BOOT partition to boot from. Usually this is
the FAT32 partition with EFI boot loader.

If that does not work you may simply re-install windoze from iso installer,
serial number is now installed in BIOS/TPM, so you will have all OS working
in SATA mode :-)

--
CeDeROM, SQ7MHZ, http://www.tomek.cedro.info
>