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Description of problem: Fedora (or any other Linux distribution) can't be installed to certain Lenovo Yoga laptops because the fake raid storage mode is not supported. Several Lenovo Yoga laptops do not allow the user to install any current Linux distributions due to being BIOS-locked to a RAID mode and Linux does not support this. You can boot a Linux live environment, but when you go to install, it will not see the Solid State Drive and it does not appear as a PCI device. The affected models are the Yoga 900 ISK2, 900S, 710S, and 900 ISK for Business, and probably the new Yoga Book and Yoga 910 as well. Lenovo has stated that removing the AHCI option from the BIOS is a feature and that they don't plan to fix this. There have been some blog postings and news articles about this issue lately. Here is the Lenovo Forums topic: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Linux-Discussion/Yoga-900-13ISK2-BIOS-update-for-setting-RAID-mode-for-missing/td-p/3339206/highlight/false (Note that this says it is solved, but it is not. Lenovo replied that they won't fix it and that Linux is not supported on these laptops.) Matthew Garrett's blog post is here: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/44694.html I approached him with the idea that perhaps the Linux kernel could be modified to reset the hardware and put it into AHCI mode after GRUB loads the kernel (according to him, GRUB doesn't need to be modified because it uses the uEFI firmware's disk access), and then Linux could proceed to boot. Here's what he said: "If you wanted to try that, the best place to do it would be the UEFI setup code in the kernel under arch/x86/boot/compressed/eboot.c - that way you can do it independent of bootloader. Grub's able to read files anyway since it's using the firmware calls to do that. The power management thing isn't about the SSD itself, it's about ensuring that the controller is programmed correctly so that the entire CPU package can enter deep sleep states. Modern systems should idle at around 4W at most, so small amounts make abig difference here." [...] "If the firmware hasn't locked the control bit and if the hardware is ok with suddenly being reconfigured, sure, that ought to work. Doing it in eboot.c means you're doing it before any PCI enumeration has occurred, which makes it more likely that things will work out well." [...] "I'll take a quick look at the 10-series chipset docs to see if it's documented, and if so I'll throw a quick patch together - but I'm probably not going to try pushing it upstream, I'm afraid. If it does work, I'm fine with anybody else doing so." I heaven't heard anything back lately, so I am putting this in a bug report so that the Ubuntu maintainers are aware of the issue. It seems like a few lines of kernel code are all that is really required to fix this and restore the ability of Linux distributions to be installed on half a dozen laptops (probably more to come, since Lenovo says that the industry is moving to this!). How reproducible: Steps to Reproduce: 1. Boot any of the affected models into Live image. 2. Attempt to run the installer. 3. Note that the Solid State Drive is not visible to the installer. Actual results: Fedora can't install to internal SSD drive. Expected results: The installer sees the SSD and can install to it. Additional info:
*********** MASS BUG UPDATE ************** We apologize for the inconvenience. There is a large number of bugs to go through and several of them have gone stale. Due to this, we are doing a mass bug update across all of the Fedora 25 kernel bugs. Fedora 25 has now been rebased to 4.9.3-200.fc25. Please test this kernel update (or newer) and let us know if you issue has been resolved or if it is still present with the newer kernel. If you have moved on to Fedora 26, and are still experiencing this issue, please change the version to Fedora 26. If you experience different issues, please open a new bug report for those.
*********** MASS BUG UPDATE ************** This bug is being closed with INSUFFICIENT_DATA as there has not been a response in 4 weeks. If you are still experiencing this issue, please reopen and attach the relevant data from the latest kernel you are running and any data that might have been requested previously.
Hi, Lenovo actually fixed the problem with a BIOS update for this particular machine, but the user must install it. Linux won't "just work" without a patch from Intel. Intel provided a patch so that machines like this can use the nvme SSD even if the user can't put the storage controller mode to AHCI, but it was rejected by the upstream kernel developers. There would be nothing to attach if trying to detect the nvme SSD while the BIOS is in RAID mode because Linux doesn't support that, and I guess it never will. https://marc.info/?l=linux-ide&m=147709610621480&w=2 Intel posted the patches here. Owners of affected computers should see if there's a BIOS update from the OEM and install it if it says "Linux support", "Linux BIOS", "AHCI support", "SATA mode added", or something like that, and then switch the mode to AHCI before booting the Linux installation media.
https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/685324/ There's the actual patches. They'd need rebased even if upstream was willing to apply them, but the attitude is to not support these machines from reading the comments.
This message is a reminder that Fedora 25 is nearing its end of life. Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 25. It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a Fedora 'version' of '25'. Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' to a later Fedora version. Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not able to fix it before Fedora 25 is end of life. If you would still like to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version of Fedora, you are encouraged change the 'version' to a later Fedora version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above. Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes bugs or makes them obsolete.
Fedora 25 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2017-12-12. Fedora 25 is no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug. If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you are unable to reopen this bug, please file a new report against the current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this bug. Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.