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I had a dual boot installation with Win10 and Ubuntu running side by side on a 255GB NVMe SSD, but my laptop would occasionally not boot into the SSD, but would after one or two reboots, randomly deciding to not boot into the SSD sometimes, somewhat. So I thought I'll remove Ubuntu and get Windows' bootloader back through a bootable UBS running Windows installer. Unfortunately, for some reason, it didn't work, and I now couldn't boot into Windows. And to further cause problems, I couldn't make it detect my SSD even when booting (which was fixed, I actually re-enabled Secure Boot so it just wouldn't show up my SSD with grub command line showing up first thing).

So I thought that I'll just rescue this in whatever state it is by installing Ubuntu and deleting all of the contents of the SSD to start afresh. But, the installer does not detect the SSD at all. I tried to use fdisk, but the only disk it shows is the flash drive itself.

This laptop I'm using is a Thinkpad T495, and although I don't know at all what can I do to save it, I think there's a problem with some BIOS setting as I probably messed up something there. I think maybe the Boot Mode (UEFI/Legacy) or something of that sort. Any help would be much appreciated.

I never had anything but Win10 on it before dual-booting. Hell, I bought it less than 2 months ago

hardbodybrain
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  • does the BIOS see the SSD? – rtaft Sep 23 '19 at 13:50
  • yeah. The BIOS lets me boot into the SSD, as I said (but it doesn't help because it's broken because of the botched attempt to get rid of dual boot) – hardbodybrain Sep 23 '19 at 14:24
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    The default for a brand-new bare metal install of Windows 10 is GPT; the default for Windows 7 is MBR. An upgrade from Win7 to Win10 will be MBR. Did this PC ever have Win7 on it? Please answer by clicking [edit] and put your answer in the original question. Suggest you boot with Ubuntu's LiveUSB and use the Disks app to delete all partitions, then start over. Here's the download for Win10's Media Creation Tool to make a Win10 install USB drive: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 – K7AAY Sep 23 '19 at 16:00

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from my experience most often microsoft windows comes pre-installed with mbr partition type (which is not what ubuntu installer works with). My advice in your case would be:

  • run Ubuntu live CD
  • choose "try Ubuntu without installing"
  • fire up gPartEd on Ubuntu live usb (install if not yet there)
  • change partition type to gpt
  • install windows 10
  • install Ubuntu again and let grub bootloader handle choosing between windows and ubuntu partition

OR if you don't need windows, simply install Ubuntu right after your partition is changed to gpt.

As far as I remember you'll have to disable secure boot for the ubuntu installation and GRUB to be possible.

Jan Myszkier
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  • But the problem is that the live disk can't detect the SSD at all. My BIOS detects the SSD just fine (but I can't boot into it because of the broken installation), but not Ubuntu, so GParted only shows the 16GB flash drive the Ubuntu is booting from, and that's it. – hardbodybrain Sep 23 '19 at 14:23
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    in that case you may want to check this thread which covers yet another topic: AHCI: https://askubuntu.com/questions/932997/why-cannot-the-ubuntu-installer-recognize-my-ssd – Jan Myszkier Sep 23 '19 at 14:38
  • I would do that, but I cannot boot into Windows . If I get a Windows install USB, will that help? – hardbodybrain Sep 23 '19 at 15:43
  • no, the AHCI thing can be setup from within the bios – Jan Myszkier Sep 25 '19 at 18:17
  • Please also check if bit locker is turned on in windows. The drives for which BitLocker is turned on, that will not be detected from linux environment. I got similar type issue while installing Kubuntu (removing pre-installed windows). And the ssd was detected after turning off the bitlocker from windows 10 environment. – blueDexter Nov 05 '20 at 10:07