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#1 2012-10-02 11:34:38

WishCow
Member
Registered: 2011-01-31
Posts: 57

New install, hangs at "GRUB Loading ..."

I just finished installing Arch on a new system, following the beginners guide, and everything went fine, until I restarted the system.

It shows "GRUB Loading ...", and a blinking cursor, and nothing else. The GRUB menu never comes up.

Has anyone encountered this before?

I'd say I have a fairly simple setup:

/boot /dev/sda1 ext2 300MB
/ ext4 /dev/sda2  120GB

I made the partitions with fdisk, so I have the "old" MBR partition table.

I have installed grub with:

(boot the install medium)
loadkeys hu
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
arch-chroot /mnt
pacman -S grub-bios
grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda
(Grub install finishes, says no errors detected)
cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
exit
umount /mnt/boot
umount /mnt
reboot

And then I'm back to the hanging BIOS Loading screen.

Edit:
There were some pieces of information regarding an encrypt root drive, I have retried the install without encrypting the root drive, and the problem perists.

Edit2:
Syslinux boots it just fine.

Last edited by WishCow (2012-10-02 12:32:55)

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#2 2012-10-02 12:05:35

DSpider
Member
From: Romania
Registered: 2009-08-23
Posts: 2,273

Re: New install, hangs at "GRUB Loading ..."

You should specify in the title that the root partition is encrypted.


"How to Succeed with Linux"

I have made a personal commitment not to reply in topics that start with a lowercase letter. Proper grammar and punctuation is a sign of respect, and if you do not show any, you will NOT receive any help (at least not from me).

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#3 2012-10-02 12:24:19

WishCow
Member
Registered: 2011-01-31
Posts: 57

Re: New install, hangs at "GRUB Loading ..."

I have redone the installation without an encrypted root, same issue. I'm removing it from the post.

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#4 2012-10-02 12:32:38

WishCow
Member
Registered: 2011-01-31
Posts: 57

Re: New install, hangs at "GRUB Loading ..."

Syslinux boots it fine, now I just need to figure out how can I use it with the encrypted root.

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#5 2012-10-02 12:36:07

DSpider
Member
From: Romania
Registered: 2009-08-23
Posts: 2,273

Re: New install, hangs at "GRUB Loading ..."

Make sure that the drive is set to boot first in the BIOS settings. I had a similar issue where the MBR for the second drive contained code left over from my other install, except the boot partition was no more. So if it's set to boot that drive, the MBR boot code kicks in and doesn't find anything. It's actually very limited... You can't fit a very detailed error in 512 bytes worth of space.

Also, this isn't a GPT-partitioned drive, is it? You need a separate 2 MiB partition for GRUB. Syslinux doesn't need one.

Last edited by DSpider (2012-10-02 12:38:48)


"How to Succeed with Linux"

I have made a personal commitment not to reply in topics that start with a lowercase letter. Proper grammar and punctuation is a sign of respect, and if you do not show any, you will NOT receive any help (at least not from me).

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#6 2012-10-02 13:24:46

WishCow
Member
Registered: 2011-01-31
Posts: 57

Re: New install, hangs at "GRUB Loading ..."

The drive is the first to boot, I checked it. It does not use GPT. I assume you mean grub needs a 2MiB partition if it is GPT?

I'm really not sure what's causing this, this is the first time I see a grub hang without any error code/message.

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#7 2012-10-02 13:58:09

DSpider
Member
From: Romania
Registered: 2009-08-23
Posts: 2,273

Re: New install, hangs at "GRUB Loading ..."

Yes, 2 MiB if GPT is used. That's what I meant. And don't use "/dev/sda1" or "/dev/sda2" when installing GRUB. You want to install to the MBR, so use /dev/sda.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … bootloader



Also: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … partitions

Pay attention, because the mounting order is important.
First, mount the root partition on /mnt.

Then mount the /home partition and any other separate partition (/boot, /var, etc), if you have any.

So do not mount the boot partition first, then the root partition after. That's just wrong.


You mentioned encryption earlier. Well? Which is it? Encrypted or not? Because you can't just mount it like any regular partition if it's encrypted.

If you still want to go with Syslinux, see the Basic Config for encryption examples.


"How to Succeed with Linux"

I have made a personal commitment not to reply in topics that start with a lowercase letter. Proper grammar and punctuation is a sign of respect, and if you do not show any, you will NOT receive any help (at least not from me).

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#8 2012-10-03 14:07:33

WishCow
Member
Registered: 2011-01-31
Posts: 57

Re: New install, hangs at "GRUB Loading ..."

I edited the starting post to mention at the end that I had an encrypted root partition (like I said in 2nd reply), but I have retried with an unencrypted one, and same result.

Last edited by WishCow (2012-10-03 14:07:56)

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