Arch Linux

local_buffoon

Member

Registered: 2025-09-23

Posts: 13

[SOLVED] EFI Partition not detected by bootloader

Following the installation guide as closely as possible. Made it through the boot loader step and can't seem to figure it out.

When chrooted into /mnt:

 [root@archiso /]# bootctl status

System:
Not booted with EFI

Available Boot Loaders on ESP: 
    ESP: /boot
    File:  -> /boot//EFI/systemd/systemd-bootx64.efi (system-boot 258-2-arch)
           -> /boot//EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI (system-boot 258-2-arch)

Boot Loader Entry Location:
    ESP: /boot ()
    config: /boot//loader/loader.conf
    XBOOTLDR: /boot ($BOOT)
    token: arch

0 entries, no entry could be determined as default.

Similarly, when in root, bootctl status returns
Couldn't find EFI system partition. It is recommended to mount it to /boot or /efi.
Alternatively, use --esp-path= to specify path to mount point.

For general setup,

root@archiso ~# cat /sys/firmware/efi/fw_platform_size
64

 root@archiso ~ # lsblk -f

NAME         FSTYPE   FSVER     LABEL         UUID                                   FSAVAIL   FSUSE%   MOUNTPOINTS
loop0        squashfs  4.0                                                                0     100%    /run/archiso/airootfs
sda
->sda1        vfat     FAT32    ARCH_202509   4EBC-068E      
nvme0n1
->nvme0n1p1   vfat     FAT32                  CC76-87FD                               807.7M     21%    /mnt/boot
->nvme0n1p2   swap     1                      26cc8cc4-9fb9-4260-9c59-9cc9adc7647f                      [SWAP]
->nvme0n1p3   ext4     1.0                    2e19899c-151e-418d-bdcc-8f899d23d53b    211.9G      2%    /mnt

root@archiso ~ # fdisk -l

Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt

Device            Start       End           Sectors     Size    Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1    2040        2099199       2097152     1G      EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2    2099200     10487807      8388608     4G      Linux swap
/dev/nvme0n1p3    10487808    50117503      489629696   233.5G  Linux filesystem

I'm typing all this manually so I won't put the whole fstab in, but it shows each of my partitions with the above formats and mountpoints, with the boot partition at fsck 2, swap partition at 0, and root partition at 1.

I tried

# efibootmgr --create --disk /dev/nvme0n1 --part 1 --loader '\EFI\systemd\systemd-bootx64.efi' --label "Linux Boot Manager" --unicode 

to create it manually but it still is not detected.

I'm connected to the internet, base is installed, linux-firmware installed, time and date are correct, locale and LANG variable set, just the boot issue. Any help, input and advice is welcome. Thanks, folks!

Last edited by local_buffoon (2025-09-24 13:15:03)

ntb314

Member

Registered: 2025-02-13

Posts: 26

Re: [SOLVED] EFI Partition not detected by bootloader

Hi,

Looks like your EFI partition is mounted to /mnt/boot, but bootctl is looking for it at /boot inside the chroot. You probably just need to bind mount it before chrooting:

mount /dev/nvme0n1p3 /mnt
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot
arch-chroot /mnt

Then try

 bootctl install 

again and check bootctl status. If that doesn't work, also check that your system is booted in UEFI mode and not legacy BIOS with

 ls /sys/firmware/efi 

should exist and not be empty.

Hope this helps and let us know how it goes.

local_buffoon

Member

Registered: 2025-09-23

Posts: 13

Re: [SOLVED] EFI Partition not detected by bootloader

Thanks for the tip! I was actually able to install after setting up GRUB instead of just trying to use systemd-boot. I think the issue was something to do with where it was mounted. I had the setup you describe, but there's a strong chance I missed some of the subtleties or ordering.