Arch Linux

zgR3Vr

Member

Registered: 2020-05-18

Posts: 22

[SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

Greetings.

I have recently installed Arch Linux on my main rig.
I do however have a problem when booting.

A little background about my system. I am not totally sure what you would need, but if I am missing something, don't hesitate to ask.
I have set up Arch and encryption by following the Arch Wiki. The system itself runs fine.

This is my partition setup.

nvme0n1       259:0    0 232.9G  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1   259:1    0   512M  0 part
├─nvme0n1p2   259:2    0   512M  0 part  /boot
└─nvme0n1p3   259:3    0 231.9G  0 part
  └─cryptroot 254:0    0 231.9G  0 crypt /

nvme0np1 is my EFI partition. I got a little confused about what partitions was needed, but I could only make it work with both a EFI and Boot partition. (Correct me on this if I am totally wrong)

When booting, I have to manually go to UEFI Shell and specify where the the grubx64.efi file is using:

fs0:\EFI\grub\grubx64.efi

After that my system boots like it normally should.

Any ideas on what I have missed?
Thanks.

Last edited by zgR3Vr (2020-05-20 16:01:28)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,723

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

was efibootmgr installed when you executed the grub install command? Which command did you use? This sounds like there's simply no nvram entry created for your boot loader. What's the motherboard?

zgR3Vr

Member

Registered: 2020-05-18

Posts: 22

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

efibootmgr was installed when I executed grub install.
The command I used was:

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=grub
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Lastly; my motherboard is a MSI Z170A GAMING M7

Thanks.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,723

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

Mhm, MSI are notorious for broken NVRAM implementations. Check whether you have an option to manually add an entry in the depths of its UEFI interface, if you don't rerun the grub install command with the --removable flag added. That will populate the /EFI/BOOT/BOOTx64.efi path, which should be bootable regardless. (And will potentially be overwritten on Windows updates should you run a dual boot)

zgR3Vr

Member

Registered: 2020-05-18

Posts: 22

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

Well that is nice to know... UEFI doesn't have an option to add an entry manually.
I do not really get what you mean with the "grub install --removable" command. Do I have to run this and see if that works?
Also, I am not dual booting, so not too big of a problem.

This might be a very dumb question, and I am sorry for that, but if other distros like Manjaro or Debian work on my pc, isn't it kinda the same thing, or is there more to it?

Thank you.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,723

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

Run

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=grub --removable

(with the ESP properly mounted of course) Not sure I understand that last question, but yes it's the same principle they will likely populate that path by default to be sure.

mee_me

Member

Registered: 2020-05-17

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

I've had this problem, I have a MSI Z170A PC MATE. I used the built in UEFI shell to load the more complete UEFI shell on the arch installer. There is a command that lets you add a boot device, that isn't available in the built in UEFI shell.
Sorry that I don't have an exact solution, it's been a while since I did that, I don't remember the commands, and it broke at some point (motherboard battery went dead). I just boot from the UEFI shell, as I don't reboot very often. I hope this points you in the right direction.

Edit: here is some more information:
The path to the UEFI shell is EFI/shellx64_v2.efi (on the second partition of the installer). There is also a v1 of the shell, but I think v2 is what I used.
The command is bcfg, here is an example from the wiki:

Shell> bcfg boot add 3 FS0:\EFI\refind\refind_x64.efi "rEFInd Boot Manager"

The 3 is the priority, starting at 0, but it probably doesn't matter too much because you can change this later in the "BIOS" (is "system setup" more correct for UEFI?). You should change the name and path to match your setup.

Last edited by mee_me (2020-05-19 22:11:44)

zgR3Vr

Member

Registered: 2020-05-18

Posts: 22

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

#6, #7
Thanks to both of you. I will try to see if this changes anything.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,723

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

Hmm I'd suspect that if bcfg works then efibootmgr (which is implicitly called when using the grub-install command without the --removable flag) would work as well? Maybe you do have an entry and it's simply not default? Maybe post

efibootmgr -v

to verify/check this

zgR3Vr

Member

Registered: 2020-05-18

Posts: 22

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

This?

Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0001
Boot0001* Hard Drive    BBS(HD,,0x0)/VenHw(5ce8128b-2cec-40f0-8372-80640e3dc858,0200)..GO..NO..........S.a.m.s.u.n.g. .S.S.D. .9.7.0. .E.V.O. .P.l.u.s. .2.5.0.G.B...................\.,.@.r.d.=.X..........A...........................%8Q.Rp......R..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.S.a.m.s.u.n.g. .S.S.D. .9.7.0. .E.V.O. .P.l.u.s. .2.5.0.G.B........BO..NO..........S.T.2.0.0.0.D.M.0.0.1.-.1.E.R.1.6.4...................\.,.@.r.d.=.X..........A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L. . . . . . . . .
. . . .5.Z.0.6.Y.3.F.B........BO..NO..........T.O.S.H.I.B.A. .D.T.0.1.A.C.A.1.0.0...................\.,.@.r.d.=.X..........A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L. . . . . . . . . . .7. .K.4.S.Z.6.M.S.N........BO

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,723

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

Yeah there's definitely no GRUB entry. So you might indeed have to do this via bcfg or the --removable flag

zgR3Vr

Member

Registered: 2020-05-18

Posts: 22

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

Alright. Will try to see if it changes anything.
Thanks.

zgR3Vr

Member

Registered: 2020-05-18

Posts: 22

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

HA! It works!
V1del, you were right about the --removable flag.
Thank you so much to both of you for taking your time on this.

Have a great day!

mee_me

Member

Registered: 2020-05-17

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

Huh, maybe that would have been easier. I believe the removable flag will change the name of grubx64.efi to bootx64.efi. bootx64.efi is what windows uses (well, at least sorta), and is what the Arch installer uses. It is meant for removable devices, a place the motherboard will always check (so that if you have an installer, it will just boot).

Since I (coincidentally) switched to an SSD yesterday, I decided to make it boot correctly again. I used bcfg, and it worked for me (I needed to make it boot entry 0). What it does is it tells the motherboard where the file is... and that's exactly what efibootmgr does. I have no idea why efibootmgr doesn't work, but bcfg does.

Anyways, setting the --removable flag is probably easier. Pretty much the only time bcfg would be needed is if you have multiple OSes on a drive.

zgR3Vr

Member

Registered: 2020-05-18

Posts: 22

Re: [SOLVED]"Reboot and Select proper Boot device" - UEFI Shell works fine

Nice to know anyways mee_me. I have a laptop I need to install both onto. Now I know how to do that.
Thanks.