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There is an HDD and an SSD.

During Lubuntu installation on my HDD, it installed GRUB on HDD and os-prober made a menu entry for the SSD's Windows partition.

But GRUB can't see it on boot:

Error: no such device: 5CD2C8C949DA73C

The menu entry is:

menuentry 'Windows 8 (loader) (on /dev/sdb1)' --class windows    --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-chain-5CD2C8C949DA73C' {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ntfs
set root='hd1,msdos1'
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd1,msdos1    --hint-efi=hd1,msdos1 --hint-baremetal=ahci1,msdos1  5CD2C8C949DA73C
else
  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 5CD2C8C949DA73C
fi
parttool ${root} hidden-
drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
chainloader +1
}

Factors to consider:

  1. This is an MBR system.
  2. The SSD is inside a caddy.
  3. BIOS recognizes the SSD on POST as my secondary drive:

    Fixed Disk 0: HITACHI HTS.........300
    Fixed Disk 1: Samsung SSD 850 Evo 120GB
    
  4. Every OS and bootable utility including GRUB's os-prober can see the SSD.
  5. BIOS does not show the SSD in boot options(We're not planning to boot from it.).

Note: Workarounds like "Making the SSD boot-drive" or "Putting the SSD in the primary slot" are not acceptable for various reasons.

UPDATE: Asked about the "various reasons" in the comments: This is a ThinkPad E15. "Making the SSD boot-drive" is simply impossible due to the fact that "BIOS does not show the SSD in boot options" (It's one of the ThinkPads with lack of ultra-bay support, and perhaps because of that, it's designed for not booting a secondary HDD, so despite detecting it on POST as a Fixed Disk, does not show it in boot options. It only trys booting it as a CD-ROM and that doesn't work. Also, one reason for not "Putting the SSD in the primary slot" is, I want shock protection for my HDD but again, this ThinkPad does not support it for a secondary drive according to this site.

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    And what might those “various reasons” be? Is it perhaps a notebook? Is the SSD on a different storage controller? Is GRUB missing drivers?
    – Daniel B
    Jun 11, 2017 at 20:03
  • @DanielB The post is updated with "various reasons". Of course it's a laptop(I did mention The SSD is inside a caddy). I had never heard of GRUB drivers. I searched for how to install drivers for GRUB, but couldn't find anything. Could you please point me in the right direction? Also, I'm looking forward to try FreeBSD boot loader from TrueOS on this. Thanks.
    – Small Boy
    Jun 12, 2017 at 7:39
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    GRUB of course also needs drivers to access disks, just like any other OS. If supported, it can also use INT13 (legacy BIOS access). Try accessing the GRUB command line. Use ls to list disks. Try before and after executing insmod ahci.
    – Daniel B
    Jun 12, 2017 at 8:15
  • @DanielB Before issuing insmod ahci, typing ls displayed (hd0) (hd0,msdos7) (hd0,msdos6) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos1) and after it, it displayed (ahci1) (ahci1,msdos1) (ahci0) (ahci0,msdos7) (ahci0,msdos6) (ahci0,msdos5) (ahci0,msdos1). Clearly, the SSD and it's only partition are recognized besides the HDD and it's partitions. Now what should I do? I tried booting the menu but GRUB complained: Error: There is no 'hd0,msdos7' disk and repeated it 5 times! Thanks for the help :)
    – Small Boy
    Jun 12, 2017 at 23:54
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    I expect (hd*) (which is implemented using INT13) is disabled in grub once you load the AHCI module. As AHCI is the specific hardware, if you talk to it directly and then later ask the bios to talk to it using INT13, then I would anticipate conflict.
    – sourcejedi
    Jun 17, 2017 at 19:14

1 Answer 1

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I put the SSD in the primary slot (because of giving up) but then I discovered that the HDD Shock Protection feature works when the HDD is in the secondary slot as well!

That is, the information that this site had gave me was incorrect and resulted in so much time being wasted. So let's try things more than relying on some info.

A few days ago I found out that the primary slot has 3.0 GB/s bandwidth and the secondary slot has 1.5 GB/s. So putting the SSD in the secondary slot would really be a miss.

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