Arch Linux

linuxrword

Member

Registered: 2025-07-21

Posts: 1

newbie grub reinstall problems

Hello I am looking for some help with my grub resinstall
I did an arch install onto a external usb drive.
The guide I followed for my arch install didnt add --removable flag to grub install, so couldn't boot my install on other computers.
I have tried many times to reinstall grub with fails of : error:  /boot/efi dosent look like an EFI partition.
Every damn time and im not sure why.

My install is generically:
sdc1 = efi
sdc2 =boot
sdc3 = encrypted partition with 2 lvm logical volumes (lv_root & lv_home for the respective directories)

My latest attempt was as rigorous and precise as I could, doing the following steps:
* reboot desktop with flash arch drive plugged in.
* update grub pacakges to latest version
* mkfs reformat sdc1 to fat32
*decrypt and activate volumegroups
*mount lv_root at /mnt
*mount lv_home at /mnt/home
*mount sdc1 at /mnt/boot/efi
*mount sdc2 at /mnt/boot
*mount and bind proc dev and sys
*regenerate and check fstab in mnt/etc/fstab
*chroot into mnt
*run "grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=grub_uefi --boot-directory=/boot --removable --no-nvram --recheck --verbose"

I love you linux but i cant figure out what Im doing wrong.
I have searched online but found no leads to what my mistake is.
I have included some common outputs below
I can provide my --verbose install logs but they are quite long and verbose.
Thank you!

PARTED PRINT:
Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name   Flags
1      1049kB  1075MB  1074MB  fat32        Luefi  boot, esp
2      1075MB  2149MB  1074MB  ext4         Lboot
3      2149MB  250GB   248GB                Lypt   lvm

BLKID:
/dev/sdc2: UUID="238117b8-4981-46c6-8910-577245f269fb" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="Lboot" PARTUUID="9cd0da1d-ca44-49f9-b9e7-ce90e8eef1bc"
/dev/sdc3: UUID="47b7b7d4-5893-4a8d-a808-5ef3a6e1bace" TYPE="crypto_LUKS" PARTLABEL="Lypt" PARTUUID="a9cdce9d-49a6-4568-93c0-11d0555a5a88"
/dev/sdc1: UUID="B9FA-BBEB" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="Luefi" PARTUUID="83b3598f-a947-4587-8607-7fddda862d91"

LSBLK from chroot:
sdc                       8:32   1   233G  0 disk 
├─sdc1                    8:33   1     1G  0 part  /boot/efi
├─sdc2                    8:34   1     1G  0 part  /boot
└─sdc3                    8:35   1   231G  0 part 
  └─myvol               252:0    0   231G  0 crypt
    ├─volgroup0-lv_root 252:1    0    30G  0 lvm   /
    └─volgroup0-lv_home 252:2    0   150G  0 lvm   /home

FSTAB FILE:
# /dev/mapper/volgroup0-lv_root
UUID=26badb9e-cd9b-4250-a94a-a67b221c7caa    /             ext4          rw,relatime    0 1

# /dev/sdc1
UUID=B9FA-BBEB          /boot/efi     vfat          rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro    0 2

# /dev/sdc2
UUID=238117b8-4981-46c6-8910-577245f269fb    /boot         ext4          rw,relatime    0 2

# /dev/mapper/volgroup0-lv_home
UUID=a870f7ad-f864-4625-9bd9-f6cc11851cde    /home         ext4          rw,relatime    0 2

/swap.img               none          swap          defaults      0 0

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,724

Re: newbie grub reinstall problems

You can't mount /boot/efi before mounting /boot