Arch Linux

brdane

Member

Registered: 2025-09-13

Posts: 6

No Linux Media Can Boot

Hi. First post here and I am glad to be here!

Before I state my issue, I will mention my hardware and such:

Motherboard: ASROCK A320-HDV Rev 4.0
Graphics Card: XFX RX-580
AMD Processor
SP Silicon 1TB SSD (Dual boots Windows 10 and Linux Arch via Grub)
SP Silicon 2TB SSD (Also dual boots Windows 10 and Linux Arch via Grub)

I have run into a very unique issue that popped up today after no changes to my system. The previous night, I did my usual shutdown before bed... I did not updates, no modifications to the system, anything.

Today, I attempt to boot Arch from one of my SSDs, It freezes on "Loading linux linux". I tried booting using the fallback, same issue. On this SSD I also have linux-lts, I tried that as well and it froze at the same spot.

I try the other SSD and it gets just a tad further to where it starts to show the fast-scrolling prompts and it gets stuck at about the second or third line. The cursor stops blinking, yet I can toggle the lock lights on the keyboard. Other times it blinks but just stays there infinitely. CTRL-ALT-DEL does nothing even.

After some research, I decided to try and boot to an installation USB and attempt to reinstall the kernel. I grabbed the latest build of Arch, slapped it on a USB, selected Arch in the USB's grub menu and it freezes on a prompt that says "triggering uevents".

Then, I did some more searching for linux rescue tools, came across SystemRestoreCD. I put that on a USB stick and attempted to boot. Started to boot, gave me the fast-scrolling prompts and it froze, too. It froze on something having to do with D-RAM. Can't toggle the lock lights on the keyboard.

SystemRestoreCD has a boot feature that lets it search attached drives for linux installations. I clicked it and it DID find my two installations on each of my SSDs, I tried to boot both that way and it still hung when attempting to mount/load a vram drive.

Both of my Windows installations are bootable and fully-functioning, so they are able to access and use the RAM just fine. I was also able to boot a USB of Hiren's Boot CD, a Windows-based collection of recovery tools.

System clocks are synced, all attached media is discoverable and mountable. Diskinternals Linux Reader on Windows is able to open my Linux partitions and explore the file system just fine.

So, summarizing, this is my issue... literally NO Linux media is bootable on my computer. No Linux installations, no bootable Linux USBs, just Windows. I have not changed anything crucial on my system.

WHAT I TRIED ALREADY:
Updated BIOS firmware to the latest version, 10.43  (which was released 9/9/2025.... INCREDIBLY recent)
Memtest passed with flying colors.
Disabled dual-boot on Windows 10.

One Linux Arch partition booting hangs at this part:

https://i.ibb.co/7xG12Qsb/p2.jpg

The other partition booting hangs at this part:

https://i.ibb.co/mZHwcjK/p1.jpg

Moderator Edit [ewaller] Changed oversized images to links.   Please note our policy on the size of in-line images, thanks

Last edited by ewaller (2025-09-14 16:32:33)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 9,003

Website

Re: No Linux Media Can Boot

The cursor stops blinking so that indicates the the system completely hung

I do not think that is correct. Does the caps lock key toggle the indicator light? Can you ssh into the system? Does booting to multi-user.target get you to the TTY login?

Have you tried memtest?

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

brdane

Member

Registered: 2025-09-13

Posts: 6

Re: No Linux Media Can Boot

The cursor stops blinking so that indicates the the system completely hung

I do not think that is correct. Does the caps lock key toggle the indicator light? Can you ssh into the system? Does booting to multi-user.target get you to the TTY login?

Have you tried memtest?

Memtest passed with flying colors and I can still toggle the caps lock light when attempting to boot my Arch installations, I cannot on the SystemRestoreCD media, and edited my post to state that. Having that said, I left it sit for 20ish minutes and nothing happened.

If SSH involved actually booting into some form of Linux media, it cannot happen. No Linux media is booting.

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 9,003

Website

Re: No Linux Media Can Boot

So does multi-user.target get you to the TTY?

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

brdane

Member

Registered: 2025-09-13

Posts: 6

Re: No Linux Media Can Boot

So does multi-user.target get you to the TTY?

I cannot boot into that at all, so no. No Linux media is working. It is also worth mentioning (which I updated on my post again) that when attempting to boot the Arch installation media, it freezes on "triggering uevents". I can still toggle the caps lock light on my keyboard but the boot does not progress after that.

Last edited by brdane (2025-09-13 18:06:15)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 18,867

Re: No Linux Media Can Boot

What about rescue.target or emergency.target?

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,043

Re: No Linux Media Can Boot

3rd link below. Mandatory.
Disable it (it's NOT the BIOS setting!) and reboot windows and linux twice for voodo reasons.

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

brdane

Member

Registered: 2025-09-13

Posts: 6

Re: No Linux Media Can Boot

What about rescue.target or emergency.target?

I am not sure how to access these, honestly.

3rd link below. Mandatory.
Disable it (it's NOT the BIOS setting!) and reboot windows and linux twice for voodo reasons.

Did that, rebooted Windows once and attempted to boot both of my Linux partitions twice for supposed voodoo reasons, no dice. One thing that comes to mind is that I did try to access my Linux partitions via Windows 10 using a program called Ext4Fsd. The program ultimately was not able to mount my drives, but I later saw this on the creator's website:

Don't use Ext2Fsd 0.68 or earlier versions with latest Ubuntu or
    Debian systems. Ext2Fsd 0.68 cannot process EXT4 with 64-BIT mode
    enabled, then it could corrupt your data. Very sorry for this
    disaster issue, I'm working on an improvement.

I am pretty sure I used the version AFTER, but I do find it good timing that I am having this issue. I assume if the drive was corrupted it would not be able to find grub. In my case, grub loads just fine.

Updated my post to include some additional information at the bottom.

Last edited by brdane (2025-09-13 21:24:08)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,043

Re: No Linux Media Can Boot

But you're also not able to boot from usb, so it's not your local partition.

I am not sure how to access these, honestly.

2nd link below
Add the appropriate parameter at the grub commandline editor.

Did you change anything about the HW setup?
Can you strip the system of non-critical peripherals? (That includes your mouse  and in doubt deactivation of a dGPU or the webcam or wifi/bluetooth in the UEFI/BIOS) ?

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 18,867

Re: No Linux Media Can Boot

I am not sure how to access these, honestly.

From Systemd Change default target to boot into that Head_on_a_Stick linked follow the link to Kernel parameters follow the section for whichever bootloader your system uses to find how to edit the parameters for a single boot so you can add `systemd.unit=multi-user.target` e.t.c..

brdane

Member

Registered: 2025-09-13

Posts: 6

Re: No Linux Media Can Boot

From Systemd Change default target to boot into that Head_on_a_Stick linked follow the link to Kernel parameters follow the section for whichever bootloader your system uses to find how to edit the parameters for a single boot so you can add `systemd.unit=multi-user.target` e.t.c..

I followed the link and read up. do I add these to the boot scripts when I press 'e' in the grub menu? If-so, where exactly? I don't see that mentioned in the wiki, specifically.

2nd link below wink
Add the appropriate parameter at the grub commandline editor.

Did you change anything about the HW setup?
Can you strip the system of non-critical peripherals? (That includes your mouse  and in doubt deactivation of a dGPU or the webcam or wifi/bluetooth in the UEFI/BIOS)?

I did not, I remember turning the computer off two days ago with both Linux and Windows able to boot, woke up yesterday to boot into Arch and it just froze. My first instinct is to want to replace all system files and rewrite the boot sector and/or MBR to cross that off the list... but I do not know my Linux tools good enough to find a tool to do that.

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 18,867

Re: No Linux Media Can Boot

I followed the link and read up. do I add these to the boot scripts when I press 'e' in the grub menu? If-so, where exactly? I don't see that mentioned in the wiki, specifically.

At the end of the line that contains `initrd=` add a space then systemd.unit=multi-user.target.

My first instinct is to want to replace all system files and rewrite the boot sector and/or MBR to cross that off the list... but I do not know my Linux tools good enough to find a tool to do that.

Is the system using BIOS or EFI to boot? Because under EFI the MBR and boot sector are not relevant and it would also not explain the live media failure.

brdane

Member

Registered: 2025-09-13

Posts: 6

Re: No Linux Media Can Boot

At the end of the line that contains `initrd=` add a space then systemd.unit=multi-user.target.

Ah, so it is a parameter, too. I will add that and see what it does.

Is the system using BIOS or EFI to boot? Because under EFI the MBR and boot sector are not relevant and it would also not explain the live media failure.

It uses both, It can detect through the boot menu and I have the option to load a boot media either-or. It worked previously, so I didn't change any configuration as far as that goes.

ALSO... JUST NOTICED SOMETHING. I threw each SSD into my laptop and was sucessfully able to boot both Linux and Windows... so I think that boils it down to a hardware issue on my tower.