Can't boot notebook from SSD

[Xen]

MR ZenWiz schreef op 20-05-2017 22:39:
> On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 1:13 PM, Little Girl <littlergirl at gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>> Hey there,
>> 
>> MR ZenWiz wrote:
>> 
>>> Apparently the initramfs image does not recognize the SSD as a boot
>>> drive and refuses to load anything.
>>> 
>>> If there's a solution, someone please let me know.  I'm going back
>>> to the hard drive for now.
>> 
>> We ran into an issue where a new SSD drive wasn't recognized and
>> solved it by using Kubuntu's partition manager to partition the
>> drive. We had already used Ubuntu's partition manager and the GParted
>> Live CD. Neither threw an error, but Ubuntu wouldn't recognize the
>> drive. For reasons unknown, the Kubuntu partitioner was able to do
>> what the others weren't. It behaved no differently from the others,
>> but unlike them, it somehow made it so that Ubuntu recognized the
>> drive and was able to be installed. It might be worth a try.
>> 
> I am unfamiliar with Kubuntu, so please post steps I can follow to use
> this (including what flags it set on the partition and how I would
> then install a different Ubuntu (Xubuntu) on that same drive).
> 
> I have posted this question on AskUbuntu:
> Xubuntu 16.04.2 absolutely refuses to boot from my notebook SSD
> https://askubuntu.com/q/917214/485236?sem=2
> 
> I feel like I wasted $88 at this point.

You said previously that you get a grub screen and that Grub thus does 
find the boot partition and can read from it, at least it can read the 
menu.

The next thing is that the root partition cannot be found by the 
initramfs.

You have said now that in the busybox shell there are no /dev/sd* 
devices right.

It should be possible to watch "dmesg" output in that busybox shell?

You haven't really posted as far as I'm aware any command output or 
anything of the kind except for this missing /dev/sd* devices.

For example there should be a /dev/sda device regardless of partitions.

What's more, if you load your SSD in any other (the same) system, if it 
gets recognised properly then it should also be recognised properly 
while booting from it. Can you tell whether you had any issues accessing 
this disk as a secondary?

If there is LVM on the disk and this SSD is now a clone of the other 
disk, then beware.

Do not load them at the same time in 16.04.

But otherwise you should be able to access the SSD as secondary disk in 
another 16.04 system.

This is the first thing you need to know, does that work?

If so, why shouldn't it work for booting? It should.

If there is a kernel issue, 16.04.2 has kernel 4.8.

Your dmesg output, whether in Busybox or in a secondary system, (used as 
a secondary disk, just for accessing), should indicate the drive being 
recognised in "ata" lines, so grep your dmesg for -i ata and it should 
provide output for this drive.

You need to verify whether there is any kernel issue in recognising this 
drive.

You don't have to give up hope, but I have not myself, nor have I 
watched so closely, but I have not seen myself any reasonable output 
that would indicate why it doesn't work or that it really won't.

I understand saving data from a busybox prompt is hard but I do wonder 
what happens when used as a secondary disk.

Since you were able to install on this drive, there should really not be 
any kernel issue.

Of course, at that point "blkid" or "lsblk" output for this drive should 
be available.

What you want to see is at least a partition table.

Can you access the partition table on the drive?

Regards.