Arch Linux

dv7777

Member

Registered: 2012-02-21

Posts: 4

[SOLVED] GRUB2, GPT, and UEFI

Hi,

I have been trying to get GRUB2 for several days now, and it still fails.
I have a system with UEFI instead of BIOS, and an SSD. Windows 7 is already installed. I have an EFI system partition (it is the first one), formatted with FAT32. Windows 7 boots correctly.
GRUB2 got installed on that partition as well, just like the Wiki describes it: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … _PARTITION
(I used the grub_efi_x86_64-install call).

But when I actually boot with group, it drops to the rescue shell, claims "invalid sector size 65535". As it turns out, the prefix variable is set to "(,gpt1)/efi/grub" and root is set to ",gpt1" .
The search command also does not work ("unknown command "search"), meaning that it does not even read the grub.cfg (which is stored on the EFI partition, /EFI/grub/grub.cfg).

If I manually specify prefix and root in the rescue shell, I can load modules, load the kernel and initramfs, and boot correctly. The rest of the system is installed already, so in theory, I could continue booting by typing all this stuff in the rescue shell every time, but that is not exactly comfortable

Does anybody have an idea what is going on? Why isn't grub finding the config file?

Last edited by dv7777 (2012-02-22 21:34:35)

the.ridikulus.rat

Member

From: Indiana, USA

Registered: 2011-10-04

Posts: 765

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB2, GPT, and UEFI

I think "invalid sector size 65535" issue is fixed in upstram bzr repo. Can you try the packages at http://db.tt/dCpmYL5k ? Or you can also try https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … pplication .

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AUR | GitHub | Gitorious | Bitbucket

Lenovo Thinkpad E430

dv7777

Member

Registered: 2012-02-21

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB2, GPT, and UEFI

Interesting. Is there a howto on how to use these upstream packages? I mostly use repository stuff, with a few AUR bits, but have no experience with upstream packages.
Also, is this bug discussed somewhere?

the.ridikulus.rat

Member

From: Indiana, USA

Registered: 2011-10-04

Posts: 765

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB2, GPT, and UEFI

Interesting. Is there a howto on how to use these upstream packages? I mostly use repository stuff, with a few AUR bits, but have no experience with upstream packages.
Also, is this bug discussed somewhere?

http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?35382 ?

I don't understand ur question. Are you asking about how to compile from the bzr repo. The link I gave are for compiled packages that you shouls install via pacman, not the sources and build scripts.

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AUR | GitHub | Gitorious | Bitbucket

Lenovo Thinkpad E430

dv7777

Member

Registered: 2012-02-21

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB2, GPT, and UEFI

Alright, it helps, thanks. But now, another problem came up: "target overlaps with firmware"
According to the GRUB developers, it means that a relocatable kernel is necessary. Did you install one, and if so, how do I do it?

EDIT: I just checked. The kernel in core *does* have the CONFIG_RELOCATABLE option set to "y". So something else is wrong.
This is getting really frustrated. The combination Arch + GPT + UEFI + GRUB2 seems to be fundamentally broken :-(

Last edited by dv7777 (2012-02-21 22:21:16)

dv7777

Member

Registered: 2012-02-21

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB2, GPT, and UEFI

Solved it! I built the GRUB2 sources directly from bazaar trunk (called the configure script with --disable-werror and --with-platform=efi ) , installed it, and voila! I did not even need the "noefi" kernel option.