Ubuntu, UEFI and hard disks

[Linux for blind general discussion]

On 2019-11-04 14:34, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:

> Didier, I would if I could get that far. For some inane reason...my
> Dell Insprion 5482 seems to think anything with secure boot off =
> legacy mode, despite everything being set up with EUFI no matter what.
> 
> Birdie, how exactly would I check what I got in Windows as I got told
> many, many ways to check

One way of checking is starting PowerShell as an administrator.
In PowerShell use Get-PhysicalDisk
Hopefully it tells the connection type too.

Thanks for telling the make and model of your laptop. It helped since
I was able to check the specifications from Dell.

Your laptop has two storage spaces. It could have one 2.5-inch hard 
drive
(or SSD), connection is SATA AHCI 6 Gbps.
The other is M.2 2280 space for solid-state drive. Connection could be
either SATA AHCI 6 Gbps or PCIe NVMe up to 32 Gbps. The connector
provides both types.

If yours were connecting using AHCI it would have worked out of the box.

Since it did not, my educated guess is that you have NVMe.
Apparently your Ubuntu installer doesn't understand your NVMe
controller.

The options are either install an internal AHCI connected SSD or
try some other Linux distribution. Didier could help you there
since to my understanding he maintains one distribution personally.

Regards,
Birdie