X11SSH-LN4F trouble creating EFI partition on NVMe drive

[Litesung]

Hello, I'm having a bit of trouble with this workflow and was wondering if anyone would be able to help me troubleshoot. There were several threads I came across, but this one is the closest to what I'm experiencing. I'm trying to install and boot from Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS amd64 on my NVMe drive.

System Specs:
CPU: Xeon E-2176G
Motherboard: Supermicro X11SCH-LN4F (Bios version 1.0)
Memory: 64gb DDR4 2133mhz ecc udimm
Boot Drive: HP Ex920 1tb (Located in the M.2-P_2 slot)
GPU: Quadro P2000

So far I've ensured that my USB Boot drive to install the OS is formatted with GPT (UEFI), and the BIOS is set to UEFI. I'm able to boot into the USB and install the OS (and detect) the NVMe drive (with the BIOS in UEFI mode). I've also tried manual installation to create a /boot/efi partition (500mb) as well as a root / partition. However upon 'completion', when I reboot into the system I am brought to the system shell rather than the OS itself. Upon checking the BIOS as well as the detected boot drives - the NVMe drive is still not there.

 

[Litesung]

For anyone who is coming across this thread via search and may be having the same issue - there was a setting in my BIOS which checked for certified/validated NVMe drives (from Supermicro's official list). I changed the option to non-validated or non-certified drives, and I was able to boot into the OS. I also ended up using Ubuntu Desktop instead of Ubuntu server. If you're starting from the beginning you'll also need to make sure your BIOS is set to UEFI mode when you install the OS onto the drive so that an EFI partition is created.