Arch Linux

prettywiltingroses

Member

Registered: 2025-08-06

Posts: 5

[SOLVED] Messed up my bootloader while trying to install a second OS

Hi! I wasn't sure where to post this so I decided this forum would be best.

So I've been running Arch for a while now, and I wanted to add Kali to my computer, I resized my partition, loaded my kali live USB, selected my already existing swap partition, made a new partition for the kali environment and selected the EFI partition to be used (the one that already existed), I realized I might've fucked up when the installer displayed "installing GRUB" because it should've already been installed.

Now I have a quite peculiar situation. When i press f12 to select what drive to boot from, it gives me 2 options: Kali or Grub.
       * If I select Kali: I get the usual Kali bootloader with a kali option and an arch option (and advanced settings & UEFI firmware settings ofc). Selecting Kali will just boot me into Kali normally, selecting Arch will cause a Kernel panic.
       * If I select GRUB: I get my bootloader the way it used to be, displaying only arch, no sign of the kali I installed. Arch boots normally.

So I can boot both OS' but I have to change my boot options. I imagine I must've accidentally installed GRUB twice and now it's viewing them as separate? How would I go about fixing this specific issue, fusing both bootloaders/removing them and reinstalling one altogether?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Last edited by prettywiltingroses (2025-08-27 16:30:39)

cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 2,090

Re: [SOLVED] Messed up my bootloader while trying to install a second OS

I suggest to wipe the ESP and boot entries
boot an arch install media
chroot
install grub from there as its your main OS that should govern over grub
or ditch grub from both installs and just manage it yourself out of band
or use a different boot manager altogether
or use efi-stub/uki and use the firmwares boot entry selector as it's intented by the uefi spec (at least arch supports that)

prettywiltingroses

Member

Registered: 2025-08-06

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Messed up my bootloader while trying to install a second OS

Thank you so much!!! I didn't realize but I didn't have OS prober installed yet either, installing os prober and reinstalling grub fixed it! I will explore those other ideas you mentioned when I have more time/energy, thanks for the info tho!!!!