Brucehankins physically disconnect the windows drive entirely and boot straight to the live USB with only your target drive connected and see if it can be found then. With only the target drive installed, you should be able to identify it easily.

I agree with this comment.

WetGeek Building on Bruce's comment, and assuming that you have set the computer's BIOS up for Solus (UEFI, GPT formatting, Secure Boot disabled, SATA set to AHCI rather than RAID, and so on) and you are dead certain that your Solus LIVE USB boots, then you might consider going into BIOS and removing the Windows Boot Manager.

However, a caution: Before you do this, see what you can find out about Asus issues with Linus installations. I mention it only because I recall reading someplace that Asus locks down its computers in ways that aren't normal, but I don't recall the details. Your instinct that there might be something in the BIOS that is blocking you might be correct.

If I may ask what is probably a dumb question, why not install Solus on the computer's primary drive, using a "destructive" install on that drive (that is, "Completely erase the drive ..." rather than "Install alongside ...")? Otherwise, it seems to me that you will end up with the computer's primary drive still containing Windows partitions and files, for no apparent purpose.

        tomscharbach why not install Solus on the computer's primary drive

        Thanks but as I mentioned, NEITHER Drive 0 NOR Drive 1 is visible to a Solus installer. They're invisible outside of Windows or the UEFI settings. The installer can't install over the primary drive, because it can't see it.

        I've posted all the details in the ACER forum as well, and I'm hoping for some joy from there.

            tomscharbach you might consider going into BIOS and removing the Windows Boot Manager.

            I did that on an ACER Aspire 5 that my wife used a few years ago, but its native OS was Windows 10. Removing the Windows Boot Manager as a boot target was as easy as removing any disk. And the disks on that machine were inn no way hidden. But there's no apparent way to do that in this Windows 11 mode.

            I predict that by Windows 12, there will be no way to install a competing OS at all. We're already very close to that, if not there already. Seems like an anti-trust violation to me.

                WetGeek I did that on an ACER Aspire 5 that my wife used a few years ago, but its native OS was Windows 10. Removing the Windows Boot Manager as a boot target was as easy as removing any disk. And the disks on that machine were inn no way hidden. But there's no apparent way to do that in this Windows 11 mode.

                That's just not correct.

                I installed Solus on two computers yesterday (a Dell Latitude 11-3180, running Windows 10, and a Dell Optiplex 7070 running Windows 11) during my annual rebuild process. In both cases, I created the Solus USB using Rufus on a different Windows 11 computer, entered BIOS and removed all boot managers on the target computer, and then installed Solus using the "destructive install" methods described in my rather long "how to" comment on "Windows dual boot (on seperate HDD"). I realize that you have no interest in dual-booting, but the issues and general process is common to both dual-OS booting and single-OS booting -- remove all bootloaders in BIOS and proceed.

                WetGeek Thanks but as I mentioned, NEITHER Drive 0 NOR Drive 1 is visible to a Solus installer. They're invisible outside of Windows or the UEFI settings. The installer can't install over the primary drive, because it can't see it.

                Here are some things I would look at:

                (1) Is either disk (the primary or the secondary) encrypted? Windows 10/11 Pro/Enterprise encrypts disks with BitLocker by default, but I am assuming that you are running Windows 11 Home. Windows 11 Home has a somewhat similar protection method ("Device Encryption") but I don't think that it is enabled by default. If Acer's Windows 11 installation has Device Encryption or something similar enabled that might be why the drives are recognized in BIOS but not visible to you Solus USB.

                (2) I haven't used an Acer computer in over a decade, but I have yet to see a computer BIOS that doesn't have a way to remove and reorder boot loaders in the BIOS. BIOS precedes the OS, so Windows is almost certainly not the block, because Windows doesn't have the ability to modify the BIOS other than to add the Windows Boot Manager. Are you absolutely sure that you If the Acer BIOS does not allow you to remove bootloaders, then you need to look at what Acer is doing to lock up the BIOS in some strange way.

                (3) You might want to figure out what drive M2/PCIe/NVMe/SATA controller is being used by the computer and check whether the kernel supports that controller.

                (4) Do you have the ability (e.g. external drive cases for M2 and/or SSD) to remove the disks from your Acer, plug them into another computer and wipe and reinitialize the disks? If you, you might try that to see if you can get to a clean drive.

                (5) You might consider downloading the Windows Media Creation Tool for Windows 11 and doing a clean "destructive" reinstall of Windows 11 on the Acer. If Acer is doing something like encrypting on the sly, that should clear the problem.

                I hope you find an answer on the Acer forum.

                      tomscharbach That's just not correct.

                      To quote a friend, that's just not correct. When you're able to do the same with an ACER Aspire 5 running Windows 11 Home S, I'll believe that you have a solution for me.

                      It's entirelly possible that the ACER firmware is very different from the Dell firmware. I've installed Solus on at least a dozen computers that originally arrived running Windows, and I'm telling you it's apparently not possible on this one. It's locked down VERY well.

                      And this ACER Aspire 5's firmware is very different from the firmware on the ACER Aspire 5 that my wife previously had ... the one that came with Windows 10, and on which I installed Solus Budgie.

                      I even removed S mode on this machine, and that made no difference.

                          WetGeek To quote a friend, that's just not correct. When you're able to do the same with an ACER Aspire 5 running Windows 11 Home S, I'll believe that you have a solution for me.

                          It's entirelly possible that the ACER firmware is very different from the Dell firmware. I've installed Solus on at least a dozen computers that originally arrived running Windows, and I'm telling you it's apparently not possible on this one. It's locked down VERY well.

                          And this ACER Aspire 5's firmware is very different from the firmware on the ACER Aspire 5 that my wife previously had ... the one that came with Windows 10, and on which I installed Solus Budgie.

                          I even removed S mode on this machine, and that made no difference.

                          It sounds like an Acer issue, not a Windows 11 issue or a Solus issue. I think that you are going to have to chase down the solution with Acer. Again, I don't use Acer computers, but I really wonder if Acer has encrypted the drives.

                            To add to this a bit, if the new target drive is visible for another machine, you can use shred to destroy the disk and know you're starting with a completely blank slate.

                            You could also install Solus by having the drive in another machine and then try booting it in the new laptop. Of course you'd need to run DoFlicky to grab any needed drivers etc., but I've also swapped disks from machine to machine before without any issues. Of course YMMV.

                              Brucehankins You could also install Solus by having the drive in another machine and then try booting it in the new laptop.

                              Yep, I did that one time by using my laptop to boot a disk I'd first installed Solus on in my server with swappable disks. It worked fine there.

                              But since we've already discovered that neither of the disks in the Acer show up in the F12 boot menu, there would be no way to boot it no matter where Solus was installed on it. This machine is going back to Amazon.

                              They listed it as coming with Windows 10. Instead, it came with Windows 11. So it's not "as advertised."

                              ,

                                  WetGeek neither of the disks in the Acer show up in the F12 boot menu

                                  Wouldn't having only the drive with Solus installed bypass the need for the boot target menu?

                                      kuki you need to change the disk organization in the [SATA] grouping to AHCI.

                                      Thanks for finding that link, Kuki. It seems to point to old information, though. There are 5 pages of settings in the firmware for this computer, and when Ctrl+S did nothing on the Main tab, tried it on the other 4 tabs as well. Nowhere does that key combination expose a SATA section.

                                        Brucehankins Wouldn't having only the drive with Solus installed bypass the need for the boot target menu?

                                        Either that, or it would simply display a "No bootable drive found" error message," depending on the details of its method of being locked down.

                                          kuki you need to change the disk organization in the [SATA] grouping to AHCI

                                          Kuki, when I followed those directions, apparently nothing happened. But it actually did. I was looking for a [SATA] setting to appear, and didn't notice that a [VMD] setting had done so.

                                          Someone from the ACER forum told me about that, and it turned out to be the solution. It's an Intel protocol that needs to be disabled in order for drives that are NOT the primary Windows drive to be listed in the boot options page, and to be exposed to OSs other than Windows.

                                          FINALLY I was able to get Solus installed on that 500GB drive, make it the first entry in the boot order, and successfully booted into Budgie.

                                          The only problem now is that Budgie can't access the WiFi radio. I've ordered a dongle from Amazon, and with any luck I'll be able to update that machine tomorrow. Hoping it will work with our current kernel. The item description says it works with Linux kernel up to 4.4.3, but I'm hoping that's just old advertising data.

                                          Why ACER feels it's necessary to hide that setting and require a secret keypress to expose it is beyone me!

                                              WetGeek It's an Intel protocol that needs to be disabled in order for drives that are NOT the primary Windows drive to be listed in the boot options page, and to be exposed to OSs other than Windows.

                                              That is very interesting. VDM (not to be confused with Intel Rapid Storage Technology, which is the RAID Windows computer users see in the BIOS of modern Windows computers) has been around for several years and is a tool for enterprise-level computers facilitating hot swaps in RAID arrays. I wonder what in the world Acer was thinking enabling VDM in a consumer laptop.

                                              As a side note, RAID doesn't necessarily interfere with Linux installation on Windows computers. Although Solus recommends using AHCI "if you cannot see your SSD drive", I've never personally had a problem with RAID. Each of my dual-drive dual-boot computers is set to RAID rather than AHCI.

                                                  tomscharbach I wonder what in the world Acer was thinking enabling VDM in a consumer laptop.

                                                  I'm sure that ACER engineers felt they had good reason to do that, and I don't mind that they did. What ground my gears was that they made it hidden. First I had to figure out how to get to the firmware (press Ctrl+F2 before the splash screen appears), then selected the "Main" tab, then press Ctrl+S to make the VDM setting appear, then disable it, save and reboot. It took three days of research, and much of that depended on luck, and finding the right people to ask.

                                                  Here's what Intel says about it. I'm assuming that it may be used because the laptop in question has an NVMe drive for Windows, but also an empty bay for an additional 2.5" disk, which I used for the 500GB SSD I installed Solus on. My little ACER TravelMate laptop (that I bought years ago for motorcycle touring) has that same arrangement, but I had no such problem installing Solus there.

                                                      WetGeek Here's what Intel says about it. I'm assuming that it may be used because the laptop in question has an NVMe drive for Windows, but also an empty bay for an additional 2.5" disk, which I used for the 500GB SSD I installed Solus on. My little ACER TravelMate laptop (that I bought years ago for motorcycle touring) has that same arrangement, but I had no such problem installing Solus there.

                                                      We both cited the same Intel document, which doesn't seem to offer a reason for deploying VMD in a consumer environment.

                                                      I can see the value of being able to hot swap NVMe drives in data center computers. I don't see the value of deploying VMD for the purpose of facilitating hot swapping in a consumer laptop, which has to be turned off and taken apart to swap drives.

                                                      But I'm sure that (as you say) "ACER engineers felt they had good reason to do that", possibly related to the way in which VMD interacts with HCI architecture.

                                                      In any event, your basic point -- Acer should not have hidden VMD or made it so incredible hard to disable -- is the critical point. Acer wasted a day of your time for no good reason.

                                                          tomscharbach Acer should not have hidden VMD or made it so incredible hard to disable

                                                          Perhaps it's the future of laptop compuging, and we're just seeing it first in thiis ACER? If so, I hope other manufacturers will document it properly, or there are gonna be a lot of users scratching their heads (and cussing).

                                                              WetGeek Perhaps it's the future of laptop compuging, and we're just seeing it first in thiis ACER?

                                                              I wonder as well. NVMe is the current technology and OEM's will probably optimize it as best they can, including VMD/HCI if that has significant performance gains. As a side thought, it looks like SATA is a dying architecture, to be replaced by NVMe, just as ATA was replaced by SATA. My guess is that all SSDs (M.2 PCIe as well as 2.5") will be NVMe in a few years and SATA, while still functional in older computers, will no longer be used in newer computers. Your guess is as good as mine. I just don't know.

                                                              WetGeek If so, I hope other manufacturers will document it properly, or there are gonna be a lot of users scratching their heads (and cussing).

                                                              That's the key, it seems to me. Distros may need to document the VMD issue in installation instructions, as well, as most do with AHCI/RAID issues currently, if more OEM's start deploying VMD in consumer computers.