Arch Linux

c21253

Member

Registered: 2018-10-24

Posts: 5

[SOLVED] /boot/x86_64-efi/ folder gets deleted after reboot

I've been trying to install Arch Linux alongside Windows 10. I've installed Ubuntu before so I know that Linux can be installed in my UEFI system. I follow every instruction and read the documentation thoroughly. I also created 3 main partitions, one for root, one for home, and one for boot. While I'm inside arch-chroot, entering

ls /boot/grub/x86_64/

will show me multiple files that all end with .mod file extension so I thought it's okay now(This is my 3rd attempt to install Arch). However, after creating grub configuration files and rebooting the system, it will lead me to grub rescue with error

Unknown file system

. I try to locate my boot partition which is in (hd0,gpt7) and try to locate the normal.mod. However, when I enter

ls (hd0,gpt7)/grub/

, all it shows is grub.cfg and grub.cfg.example.

I tried other solutions on the internet and on this forums but almost all of them just tells grub to point to normal.mod which is in fact non-existent in my Arch installation.

And I'm on a laptop with one hard drive. Both Windows and Arch share the same hard drive.

This is my second day trying to install arch and relying on documentations and walkthroughs. I did it totally fine on VirtualBox and it works. But when I try it in my machine, it doesn't anymore.

Thanks!

Last edited by c21253 (2018-10-25 06:12:47)

AlienofOne

Member

Registered: 2018-10-22

Posts: 11

Re: [SOLVED] /boot/x86_64-efi/ folder gets deleted after reboot

What bootloader are you looking to use?

The GRUB wiki page has a great section on UEFI installations, just make sure to properly specify your ESP partition. You'll also want to take extra care for the grub-mkconfig section.

Are you attempting to install your bootloader on a second partition on your hard drive? If your hard drive came with a recent install of Windows, it should already have an EFI partition with the boot files for your windows install on there, which is where you'll want to plant your Arch boot files as well and then you can create additional GRUB entries to boot into your Windows install.

Can you post your current fdisk /dev/sda table?

c21253

Member

Registered: 2018-10-24

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] /boot/x86_64-efi/ folder gets deleted after reboot

I'm planning to use GRUB.

I think I specified the ESP partition during installation by mounting /dev/sda1 and using

--efi-directory=/mnt/efi

My current fdisk /dev/sda table:

Disk Label: GTP

Device        Size      Type                      Name
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/dev/sda1   100M     EFI Filesystem
/dev/sda2   16M      Microsoft Reserved
/dev/sda3   768G     NTFS                    Windows 10
/dev/sda4   175G     EXT4                    /
/dev/sda5   686.4    NTFS
/dev/sda6   1G       Windows Recovery
/dev sda7   1G       EXT4                   /boot                     <--- this is supposedly where I installed GRUB
/dev/sda8   31G      Linux Swap         Swap
/dev/sda9   200.2G   EXT4                   /home

Partition table entries are not in disk order

The GRUB Wiki troubleshooting says that the "Unknown filesystem" error can be solved by reordering
the partition to ensure GRUB is in the first 2TiB but it doesn't apply to me because I only have 2TiB.

While installing Arch and Grub, I would see an /x86_64/normal.mod and other files inside the grub folder.
But I booted into Arch live iso and this is the result:

# mkdir /mnt/boot

# mount /dev/sda7 /mnt/boot

# ls /mnt/boot
amd-ucode.img grub initramfs-linux.img initrams-linux-fallback.img lost+found vmlinuz-linux

# ls /mnt/boot/grub
grub.cfg grub.cfg.example                <---------------The x86_64 folder is now lost, thus it collapse to grub rescue

Thank you in advance for the replies

Last edited by c21253 (2018-10-25 02:45:26)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,541

Website

Re: [SOLVED] /boot/x86_64-efi/ folder gets deleted after reboot

I think I specified the ESP partition during installation by mounting /dev/sda1 and using

--efi-directory=/mnt/efi

What is /mnt/efi?

Did you run these commands from in the chroot or outside the chroot?  In either case, that path would be wrong.

If you ran the grub install commands from outside a chroot, it likely installed the missing files in the iso's tmpfs which is wiped on shutdown/reboot.

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

c21253

Member

Registered: 2018-10-24

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] /boot/x86_64-efi/ folder gets deleted after reboot

It's the efi partition mounted from /sda/dev1 on arch-chroot.

I ran all grub commands inside chroot and it reported that there are no errors, I was also able to execute a mkconfig file without a problem.

Edit:
I managed to find a x86_64-efi folder by booting up Arch live and copying the x86_64-efi folder from /usr/lib/grub to /boot/grub. I'm not sure if this is a valid solution because there might still be dependencies missing but grub rescue now shows all the mod files from the x86_64-efi folder but I try to use insmod normal and it says "grub_real_boot_time" not found. So I booted into my Arch live usb again and backed up the grub folder in /boot partition and reinstalled grub.

I was finally able to get out of grub rescue and it led me to Windows and I used bcdedit to point to the Arch bootloader. I restarted my PC and a grub CLI shows up which I can boot Arch into and fix Arch from inside.

Thank you.

Marking as solved.

Last edited by c21253 (2018-10-25 06:10:28)