[SOLVED?] grub "No such device," even with correct UUID

bitmask · 2017-10-16 04:02:08

I've installed Arch over 6 times now in slightly different ways, because grub keeps saying "no such device" when selecting Arch from the grub menu, no matter what how many common fixes I try. I've quintuple-checked many times that the correct UUIDs are in grub.cfg and fstab, and it also displays the correct UUID when telling me "no such device." I keep searching, but I'm not finding anything relevant to my situation. Note: my motherboard is a few years old and uses BIOS instead of UEFI, if it helps.

grub.cfg: https://pastebin.com/yU7HMs9i

Some of the things I've already tried:

- Reinstalling arch with a GUI installer instead of the normal one. (Yes, I know this isn't supported, but I gave it a try.)

- Reinstalling arch with and without a separate boot partition.

- Reinstalling grub.

- Update-grub.

- Generating new UUIDs.

- Swapping UUIDs of boot and main partition in grub.cfg

- Attempting to boot with and without installation USB plugged in.

- Boot-repair-disk. (it seems to just be broken)

- The instructions in this answer: https://askubuntu.com/a/143668 (I know it's Ubuntu, still gave it a try.)

- The instructions in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LgdfoN7b2Q (Although my UUID was correct to begin with.)

The only weird thing I noticed was during installation it tells me this:

Failed to connect to lvmetad: No such file or directory. Falling back to internal scanning.

but that seemed to just be a warning.

How can I move forward in identifying the problem?

Last edited by bitmask (2017-10-17 17:25:07)

Scimmia · 2017-10-16 04:20:56

lvmetad? So this is on LVM? Sounds like missing hooks in mkinitcpio.conf

bitmask · 2017-10-16 04:25:22

How would I fix that?

Scimmia · 2017-10-16 04:31:33

By adding the hooks you need

lo1 · 2017-10-16 08:06:59

Scimmia wrote:

lvmetad? So this is on LVM? Sounds like missing hooks in mkinitcpio.conf

That's not always the case. I got the same message when configuring grub, but that was only informational and non relevant with my current installation.
Edit: though apparently that was the case.

@bitmask, it would be useful to post output from at least

 
fdisk -l
lsblk

to help people understand your configuration first, then look at your grub.cfg.

Last edited by lo1 (2017-10-16 19:19:12)

bitmask · 2017-10-16 16:16:01

fdisk -l (sdd2 is boot and sdd3 is installation):

Disk /dev/sda: 119.2 GiB, 128035676160 bytes, 250069680 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x67fa967c

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *         2048    206847    204800   100M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          206848 249143295 248936448 118.7G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       249143296 250064895    921600   450M 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE


Disk /dev/sdb: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x2b40effd

Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *          2048     206847     204800  100M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2           206848 1952600063 1952393216  931G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3       1952600064 1953521663     921600  450M 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE


Disk /dev/sdc: 983.5 MiB, 1031274496 bytes, 2014208 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0ca2e175

Device     Boot Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *        0 1777663 1777664  868M  0 Empty
/dev/sdc2         164  131235  131072   64M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)


Disk /dev/sdd: 223.6 GiB, 240057409536 bytes, 468862128 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xf5a2ec12

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdd1            2048 416430079 416428032 198.6G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdd2       416430080 417738751   1308672   639M 83 Linux
/dev/sdd3       417740800 468856831  51116032  24.4G 83 Linux


Disk /dev/sde: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x000500e4

Device     Boot  Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sde1         2048    206847    204800   100M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sde2  *    206848 679809023 679602176 324.1G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT


Disk /dev/loop0: 754 MiB, 790577152 bytes, 1544096 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

lsblk:

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0    7:0    0   754M  1 loop /run/archiso/sfs/airootfs
sda      8:0    0 119.2G  0 disk
├─sda1   8:1    0   100M  0 part
├─sda2   8:2    0 118.7G  0 part
└─sda3   8:3    0   450M  0 part
sdb      8:16   0 931.5G  0 disk
├─sdb1   8:17   0   100M  0 part
├─sdb2   8:18   0   931G  0 part
└─sdb3   8:19   0   450M  0 part
sdc      8:32   1 983.5M  0 disk
├─sdc1   8:33   1   868M  0 part /run/archiso/bootmnt
└─sdc2   8:34   1    64M  0 part
sdd      8:48   0 223.6G  0 disk
├─sdd1   8:49   0 198.6G  0 part
├─sdd2   8:50   0   639M  0 part
└─sdd3   8:51   0  24.4G  0 part
sde      8:64   0 465.8G  0 disk
├─sde1   8:65   0   100M  0 part

    └─sde2   8:66   0 324.1G  0 part

Last edited by bitmask (2017-10-16 16:17:24)

lo1 · 2017-10-16 17:17:52

Ok, sdd2 is boot, but i'm seeing that your disks are all dos. Also, as you say, your mobo is quite old so you'll rather install grub to your MBR, which means you need to install it in /dev/sdd (without any number following).
Once you mount the other bootable ntfs partitions, i suggest you use os-prober to check if grub is able to find them. If i'm not wrong, you're going to chainload your other systems flawlessly. If you find them, configure and install grub.
Also, better make sure you see the coloured logo when booting the USB live, and nothing like "Arch Linux archiso x86_64 UEFI USB".
Least but no last, read the partition guide in the wiki since i'm no expert and i don't want any responsibility if you break anything/loose data.

bitmask · 2017-10-17 17:24:24

If anyone wants to know what I did I just gave up and used syslinux.

Arch Linux

#1 2017-10-16 04:02:08

[SOLVED?] grub "No such device," even with correct UUID

#2 2017-10-16 04:20:56

Re: [SOLVED?] grub "No such device," even with correct UUID

#3 2017-10-16 04:25:22

Re: [SOLVED?] grub "No such device," even with correct UUID

#4 2017-10-16 04:31:33

Re: [SOLVED?] grub "No such device," even with correct UUID

#5 2017-10-16 08:06:59

Re: [SOLVED?] grub "No such device," even with correct UUID

#6 2017-10-16 16:16:01

Re: [SOLVED?] grub "No such device," even with correct UUID

#7 2017-10-16 17:17:52

Re: [SOLVED?] grub "No such device," even with correct UUID

#8 2017-10-17 17:24:24

Re: [SOLVED?] grub "No such device," even with correct UUID

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