SATA settings not available in BIOS (no OS installed)

[ekayen]

I am trying to install Ubuntu on a Pavilion 15-cs0073cl laptop. The hard drive has been wiped and there is no OS installed. Whenever I try to boot from the USB in order to install Ubuntu or repartition the internal hard drive, I am only able to see the USB drive, not the internal hard drive.

From some googling, it looks like this issue might be because of the SATA settings --  AHCI should work. However, the BIOS menu doesn't have any option for modifying the SATA settings. The menus within BIOS are the same as those that the user posted in this question: (https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Software-and-How-To-Questions/How-to-enable-AHCI-mode-for-SSD...). 

I have two questions:

1) Is this laptop already set to AHCI mode? If so, the drive visibility issues may have another cause.

2) Are there any available updates to the BIOS that I could install, that would make the SATA mode available? (e.g., the ones offered in this question, though for this laptop/Ubuntu: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Boot-and-Lockup/change-sata-mode-from-ACHI-to-IDE/td-p/666919...)

[Dilip_18]

Hi@ekayen,

Welcome to the HP Support Community! I'd like to help!

I see you are experiencing issues with the HP Pavilion laptop when trying to install Ubuntu.

AHCI is enabled by default in the BIOS, and there is no way to change it to anything else.

If you look in the device manager, under the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers section, you should see the drive controller listed as as something-something AHCI controller.

The drive controller your notebook has should already be set to AHCI by default and the AHCI controller should be listed in the device manager under the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers device manager category.

A NVMe SSD uses a separate NVMe storage controller driver, not AHCI.

No consumer class notebooks have been able to have the storage controller settings changed by the user in years.

Hope this helps! Keep me posted. 

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