Error Checking Storage Configuration

Rocky Linux Help & Support
1

I am new to Linux and wanting to install Rocky Linux 9.2 on my iMac 2019:

Spec: Intel 8xCorei9, 1TB SSD drive, 128GB RAM, Radeon Pro Vega 48 8GB

I have wiped my drive clean, however I am not sure what method to use to erase the drive using MacOS disk utility APFS.

When I get to the installation screen, depending on how I have formatted the drive, Rocky Linux only detects around 1GB free each time.

When I select Automatic, Delete All and Reclaim all space, it still says I only have around 1GB free. I then receive the error message Error Checking Storage Configuration.

Is there something I am doing wrong here?

Clayton

Any ideas?

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2

I think I’ve solved the problem. I clicked Full Disk Summary and Boot Loader and removed the selected disk from the list.
Then went back through automatic partitioning and it seems to have worked.

Clayton

2 Likes
3

OK, it looks as though by deleting the entry, it does not create a boot loader, so I’m back to same issue.

I did go into error message details:

Resource to create this format macefi is unavailable

Any suggestions please.

Clayton

4

Im dealing with exactly the same problem… Did you solve it?

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Hi Diego,

Sorry I have not had the time to look into this further, however I’m attempting to solve this time round.

I am attempting to install Rocky Linux 9.3 on my iMac replacing everything on it:

IMac 2019
1 TB SSD
Intel 8-Core i9
AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 8GB
128GB RAM

I downloaded the minimal setup from the webpage and I am currently on the Installation Summary Screen. I have completed the Localisation, User Settings and Software sections.

• In the Installation Destination, it says that I have 1.12MiB free.
• Storage Configuration Automatic
• Checked I would like to make additional space available
• I selected the disk 931.8 GB APPLE SSD SM1024L followed by DONE
• I then selected Reclaim Space
• I selected 931.8 GB APPLE SSD SM1024L followed by DELETE ALL
• The action shows the entire disk has a status of Delete
• I then click Reclaim Space and it takes me back to Main Screen
• The Error message on Installation Destination
• Error Checking Storage Configuration

Can anyone please point me in the right direction as I am at a loss on what to do next.

Clayton

6

Just an update: I’m not worried about affecting any partitions etc… as I want Rocky to be the sole OS on my machine. I am happy to provide any tests, log files etc… to get this working.

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Hey Clayton, I don’t have a mac so I’m probably not much help. I did ask around though and was told by someone that they had similar issues but this forum thread helped them:

Specifically the blog Linux sur les vieux iMac (2) – Installation du système de base – Le blog technique de Microlinux (Yeah, it’s French but the Firefox translation worked rather well for me and the eight article on partitioning might be useful to you).

If reading through that forum post and blog don’t help - can you post a few screenshots/pictures so I can see the issue you are having a bit more clearly?

Best of luck!
~Stack~

8

Hi Stack,

Many thanks for your reply and time.

Here are installation screenshots (apologies I had to take with my mobile phone)

Selected Installation Destination from the main list.

Selected the Apple SSD SM1024L disk and hit Done (below)

IMG_0113
IMG_01131920Ă—1440 270 KB

Select RECLAIM SPACE (below)

IMG_0114
IMG_01141920Ă—1440 120 KB

Select DELETE ALL (below)

IMG_0115
IMG_01151920Ă—1440 159 KB

Choose RECLAIM SPACE (below)

IMG_0117
IMG_01171920Ă—1440 253 KB

Error Check Storage Configuration (below)

IMG_0118
IMG_01181920Ă—1440 353 KB

Hope this helps.

Kind Regards,

Clayton

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Have you tried the links @stack posted since people have used those as a reference and got Rocky installed on a Mac?

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I have now tried the links and followed the instructions for both GPT and MBR partitioning. However, when I return to the installation, I am now receiving the following error message:

Failed to find a suitable stage1 device Apple EFI Boot partition cannot be of type … Apple EFI Boot Partition must be mounted on one of /boot/EFI

Am I missing something here?

Clayton

11

You need to have a partition called /boot/EFI of EFI type and probably 1G or so in size.

12

I’m having the same problem with a late 2014 Mac Mini with a 1TB NVMe and a 2TB SSD installed. Both devices show up and they both are failing exactly as outlined in " Clayton" descriptions, the Localization screen for disk selection.

stack Makes this comment:

You need to have a partition called /boot/EFI of EFI type and probably 1G or so in size.

I selected the Custom, the + to add a mount point, select /boot/efi from the drop-down, and 2 GiB. But it fails with the message “resource to create this format macefi is unavailable”.
I tried LVM, LVM (thin partitioning) and “Standard” and they had the same error.

Do I need to pull out the NVMe SSD and plug it into a Linux host and try to partition it there and then reinstall it to the Mac Mini to restart the Installer and complete the Rocky installation?
Or, does this partitioning need to be done when the NVMe SSD is attached to a Mac running MacOS?

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On “PC” the UEFI (successor of BIOS) seeks EFI System Partition (ESP) from (preferably GPT) drive and loads bootloader from ESP. Later, OS may mount the ESP for convenience (for package updates) to /boot/efi

The ESP must have format (FAT32) and type (“standard” partition, type ESP) that the UEFI can access. (The GPT allows many more standard partitions than the DOS/MBR.)

Mac … I don’t know anything about Mac. Does it have UEFI, or does it have Apple special BIOS? Does it behave like UEFI, or does it require something else?

14

The work-around (for me) was to create a VBox x86-64 guest for Rocky Linux on my Win10 PC and made sure that the “Enable EFI” box was checked in the “Extended Features” tab of the guest. And, I did not create a vDisk for the guest - leave that blank.
Then I took the NVMe SSD out of the Mac Mini and mounted into a portable Sabrent USB NVMe enclosure and attached it to the Win10 host machine’s USB 3.1 port and used the VBox “USB Device Filters” to map that to the new Rocky Linux guest.
I mapped the “Rocky-9-5-boot.iso” image to the guest as the DVD and “powered” up the guest. The “DVD” booted with no problems and the Installer came up fine.
When it got to the “Localization” screen, I clicked on the “Installation Destination” and found the Sabrent “disk” and selected it for the installation with “Automatic” partitioning and clicked “Done”. There were no error messages shown on the disk icon when it went back to the Localization screen, and I proceeded to do a typical / normal installation of Linux.
The one hiccup was when the installation completed and needed a reboot, the USB enclosure wasn’t automatically added back to the guest, so the guest didn’t boot (“no bootable device found”). I think I could have fixed this by changing the guest’s boot options to use USB 1st on its virtual “BIOS” screen, but since the Windows Disk Manager showed the USB NVMe correctly partitioned and formatted, I figured it was time to test it.
For a test, I unplugged the Sabrent USB adapter with the NVMe SSD in it and plugged it into one of the Mac Mini’s USB ports, and powered it up.
It booted perfectly.
I suspect you could do the same process using a modern Windows PC and something like the Sabrent USB attached NVMe adapter. Just boot the Windows PC with a bootable Rocky Linux USB stick (I used Rufus to burn the Rocky ISO to a 2GB USB stick), and then make sure you pick the USB disk that is the new NVMe and not the Windows disk (lol). But I didn’t confirm that.

The one last issue I’m having with this is that when I moved the NVMe SSD from the USB enclosure to the NVMe slot internal to the Mac Mini, the default boot up fails.

However, choosing the “*Rocky Linux (0-rescue-xxxxxxxxxx) 9.5” option in the boot menu boots up with no issues.

It turns out the Mac Mini enumerates the disk devices differently between an external USB attached disk, an internal SATA SSD disk and an internal NVMe SSD disk.
In my case, there is a 2TB SATA SSD installed that I want to use for data (one EXT4 partition) and use the 1TB NVMe SSD for boot and OS.

When the NVMe SSD is attached to the external USB, lsblk shows the 2 disk devices and lists them in the order they are labeled. And the NVMe SSD is SDA (top of the list) with the correct partitioning and the internal SATA SSD as SDB (second on the list) with a single 2TB partition.
When the NVMe is moved to the internal NVMe slot, the NVMe SSD becomes nvme0n1 (2nd on the list) and the SATA SSD is now SDA (first one in the list).

At some point in the boot up, I’m assuming grub changes from using the NVMe boot loader to the SDA and fails because SDA isn’t a boot disk. Then it never looks for the nvme0n1 (or mayybe doesn’t find it).

I’m purely guessing, but I think the “rescue” boot up doesn’t look for more disks to mount and just continues to use the only disk it found. That way the NVMe SSD is the only disk shown and the rescue boot up works fine.

I think it could be fixed by changing the grub default boot disk from 0 to 1.
I need to find the correct way to get Rocky’s grub loader to default to the 2nd disk as the boot device.
For me, the issue is that the /etc/default/grub file doesn’t have the “GRUB_DEFAULT=” option yet, and I don’t know if it’s supported by Rock 9.5.

I’m not sure if this is the real fix, but I’m going follow this path with grub.
The one doubt I have is that when the NVMe SSD is installed internally, and I pop the SATA cable off the logic board, the “normal boot” still fails but the “rescue” boot is successful. I expected, with no SATA disks, the NVMe SSD would be the default. But it’s not.
The “normal” boot up may be “hard coded” to look for SDA as the boot disk.

15

I found a solution for my problem, but I don’t know if it will help with yours.
See this thread for details on solving my problem:

Maybe it will help.

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