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#1 2018-01-16 18:31:14

vegarab
Member
Registered: 2017-12-22
Posts: 47

[SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

I've been trying to install arch on my Thinkpad x250, but I always fail at the grub-installation or boot. I have tired directions for both using UEFI and legacy, none seem to been able to boot. In UEFI-mode I can't get grub-install to install to the /boot partition, trying:

 grub-install /dev/sda
 grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub  
 grub-install --targe=i386-pc /dev/sda 

Quite frankly I don't care about UEFI or legacy, I just want something that works on this laptop. I am planning on running Windows 10 alongside Arch though.

One of my biggest issues here is disk-labels and partition tables. I don't understand what or why. I several guides I have read (using cfdisk for partitioning) says that I want the label dos/msdos, others don't mention it and use GPT by default. I have tried intalling on the disk with dos and gpt (changing with parted -> mklabel) but with no luck.

What I want to do is make:
/dev/sda1 200MB /boot, /dev/sda2 30GB /, /dev/sda3 80GB /home.
I have seen a lot of inconcistency in mounting /dev/sda1 as /mnt/boot before installing.. why is that? Is this necessary at all?

I'd really appreciate some help here. I have installed Arch in legacy on an old x201 and UEFI on a Macbook without any off these issues.. I am really confused now after hours of troubleshooting.

Thanks.

Last edited by vegarab (2018-01-18 18:07:27)

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#2 2018-01-16 20:23:39

Head_on_a_Stick
Member
From: London
Registered: 2014-02-20
Posts: 7,680
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

vegarab wrote:

I can't get grub-install to install to the /boot partition

Please post the error message(s), if any.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855

I am planning on running Windows 10 alongside Arch though

This will dictate your boot strategy — if Win10 is installed in UEFI mode then you should install Arch in UEFI mode also (sharing the EFI system partition is recommended but not mandatory).

several guides I have read

Please don't do that, there is only one guide that you should be following:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide

All other guides are outdated and/or error-ridden.

I have seen a lot of inconcistency

Then stop using rubbish "guides" and stick to the official documentation.

A UEFI system will need a GPT disk, for a non-UEFI system it is best to use an ms-dos ("MBR" type) partition table.

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#3 2018-01-16 20:41:45

vegarab
Member
Registered: 2017-12-22
Posts: 47

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
vegarab wrote:

I can't get grub-install to install to the /boot partition

Please post the error message(s), if any.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855

I am planning on running Windows 10 alongside Arch though

This will dictate your boot strategy — if Win10 is installed in UEFI mode then you should install Arch in UEFI mode also (sharing the EFI system partition is recommended but not mandatory).

several guides I have read

Please don't do that, there is only one guide that you should be following:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide

All other guides are outdated and/or error-ridden.

I have seen a lot of inconcistency

Then stop using rubbish "guides" and stick to the official documentation.

A UEFI system will need a GPT disk, for a non-UEFI system it is best to use an ms-dos ("MBR" type) partition table.

Alright. I'll make sure to boot in UEFI mode, set the disk to GPT.
However, I am still getting the "can not find EFI directory" error on grub-install. I have formatting /boot to vFAT aswell, but it didn't help.

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#4 2018-01-16 20:52:21

Scimmia
Fellow
Registered: 2012-09-01
Posts: 11,471

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

Formatted to VFAT, but what partition type?

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#5 2018-01-16 20:59:20

vegarab
Member
Registered: 2017-12-22
Posts: 47

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

Scimmia wrote:

Formatted to VFAT, but what partition type?

EFI System, set with cfdisk.
So
/dev/sda1 is 200MB set to vFAT, EFI System (/boot)
/dev/sda2 is 30GB set to ext4, Linux (/)
/dev/sda3 is 90GB set to ext4, Linux (/home)

parted /dev/sda print

Shows /dev/sda1 as boot, esp, so it should be correctly set to EFI System partition after installation (pacstrap).

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#6 2018-01-16 21:03:29

Slithery
Administrator
From: Norfolk, UK
Registered: 2013-12-01
Posts: 5,776

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

Did you actually mount the boot partition correctly before installing?


No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

aur - dotfiles

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#7 2018-01-16 21:21:55

vegarab
Member
Registered: 2017-12-22
Posts: 47

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

slithery wrote:

Did you actually mount the boot partition correctly before installing?

With the partitions mentioned above I do the following to install:

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda1 /boot
mount /dev/sda3 /home
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel

I then generate fstab and install grub:

pacman -S grub os-prober
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub

and generate grub config. No errors shown.

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#8 2018-01-16 21:43:46

Slithery
Administrator
From: Norfolk, UK
Registered: 2013-12-01
Posts: 5,776

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

So the installation is successful.

What happens when you try to boot?

Ignore the above, 2ManyDogs has the correct answer below.

Last edited by Slithery (2018-01-16 21:47:41)


No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

aur - dotfiles

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#9 2018-01-16 21:45:52

2ManyDogs
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2012-01-15
Posts: 4,645

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

vegarab wrote:

With the partitions mentioned above I do the following to install:

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda1 /boot
mount /dev/sda3 /home
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel

Check the difference between how you mount boot and home and the Installation Guide: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … le_systems

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2018-01-16 21:46:50)


How to post. A sincere effort to use modest and proper language and grammar is a sign of respect toward the community.

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#10 2018-01-18 18:06:16

vegarab
Member
Registered: 2017-12-22
Posts: 47

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

2ManyDogs wrote:
vegarab wrote:

With the partitions mentioned above I do the following to install:

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda1 /boot
mount /dev/sda3 /home
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel

Check the difference between how you mount boot and home and the Installation Guide: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … le_systems

My bad, I typed wrong in the post. I mounted to /mnt/boot and /mnt/home, not /boot and /home.

Anyways, I solved the issue by:
Having disk set to GPT. / and /home partitioned to ext4, /boot partitioned to vFAT.
I then installed Arch as usual. However, when installing grub and os-prober packages, I also installed efibootmgr. This made the grub-install command from the GRUB-wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB under UEFI, run without errors. I could then successfully boot into the system with GRUB.

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#11 2018-01-18 18:24:50

Slithery
Administrator
From: Norfolk, UK
Registered: 2013-12-01
Posts: 5,776

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

vegarab wrote:

However, when installing grub and os-prober packages, I also installed efibootmgr.

So exactly what it told you to do in the wiki then...
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … allation_2

Pacman would also have told you to do this this when you installed grub.

Last edited by Slithery (2018-01-18 18:54:17)


No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

aur - dotfiles

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#12 2018-01-19 11:24:45

vegarab
Member
Registered: 2017-12-22
Posts: 47

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

slithery wrote:
vegarab wrote:

However, when installing grub and os-prober packages, I also installed efibootmgr.

So exactly what it told you to do in the wiki then...
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … allation_2

Pacman would also have told you to do this this when you installed grub.

Yeah that is due to me reading guides outside of archwiki.org for GRUB-installation. Also pacman did not list efibootmgr as a dependencies or recommended package when installing grub and os-prober. I'll strictly stick to official sources when dealing with this kind of stuff from now on...

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#13 2018-01-19 11:47:49

Slithery
Administrator
From: Norfolk, UK
Registered: 2013-12-01
Posts: 5,776

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

vegarab wrote:

Also pacman did not list efibootmgr as a dependencies or recommended package when installing grub and os-prober.

Oh yes it did...

root@red:~# pacman -S grub
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Package (1)  New Version  Net Change

core/grub    2:2.02-4      29.99 MiB

Total Installed Size:  29.99 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] 
(1/1) checking keys in keyring                                                                          [#############################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking package integrity                                                                        [#############################################################] 100%
(1/1) loading package files                                                                             [#############################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking for file conflicts                                                                       [#############################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking available disk space                                                                     [#############################################################] 100%
:: Processing package changes...
(1/1) installing grub                                                                                   [#############################################################] 100%
Generating grub.cfg.example config file...
This may fail on some machines running a custom kernel.
done.
Optional dependencies for grub
    freetype2: For grub-mkfont usage [installed]
    fuse2: For grub-mount usage [installed]
    dosfstools: For grub-mkrescue FAT FS and EFI support [installed]
    efibootmgr: For grub-install EFI support
    libisoburn: Provides xorriso for generating grub rescue iso using grub-mkrescue
    os-prober: To detect other OSes when generating grub.cfg in BIOS systems [installed]
    mtools: For grub-mkrescue FAT FS support [installed]
:: Running post-transaction hooks...
(1/3) Cleaning pacman cache...
(2/3) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...
(3/3) Updating the info directory file...

No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

aur - dotfiles

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