pfsense Installer can't see NVME drive HP Elite Desk

stephenw10

What storage does it have? Does it show in the boot log when you boot the installer?

bdc123

@stephenw10 It has an SK Hynix NVME drive. I don't see it pop up in the boot log.

stephenw10

If it's just an NVMe drive it should just appear on the PCIe bus. If you drop to a shell in the installer you can run: pciconf -lv

You should see something like:

nvme0@pci0:9:0:0:	class=0x010802 rev=0x01 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x1bc0 device=0x1002 subvendor=0x1bc0 subdevice=0x1002
    vendor     = 'Innodisk Corporation'
    device     = 'PCIe 3TE6 Controller (DRAM-less)'
    class      = mass storage
    subclass   = NVM

Have you checked that any other OS can see the drive and install to it?

Steve

bdc123

@stephenw10 ah, I do see it with the pciconf command.

It currently has Windows installed on the drive and functions fine. Is that windows install interfering with the pfsense installer potentially? I am honestly quite a noob when it comes to storage configurations, partitions ,etc...

stephenw10

It can be an issue if there is some odd GPT table on it or similar.

Does it show as nvme0 or as a 'none' device?

bdc123

@stephenw10 it shows as nvme0@pci0:1:0:0

stephenw10

Huh, interesting.

You might try at the shell in the installer: geom disk list. That should include something like:

Geom name: nda0
Providers:
1. Name: nda0
   Mediasize: 120034123776 (112G)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Mode: r2w2e3
   descr: M.2 (P80) 3TE6
   lunid: 010000000000000000000078490bc0bb
   ident: BCA12107210770235
   rotationrate: 0
   fwsectors: 0
   fwheads: 0

If it does then geom part list should show what it's seeing on he drive that prevent it being an install target.

But ultimately you need to low level format the drive to remove whatever is causing the issue.

bdc123

@stephenw10

Heres a picture of the output.

What's the best way to do a low level format on this drive?

stephenw10

What does geom part list show?

You can probably remove whatever is there with the appropriate geom command.

bdc123

@stephenw10

stephenw10

It's a GPT table issue I'd say. One of these options should work:
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/multiple-disks.html#clear-the-disk

bdc123

@stephenw10 Many thanks, this resolved my issue and now the installer can see the nvd0 drive. I had a feeling it was something to do with the partitions but I wasnt sure. The limited BIOS really threw me for a loop.