[SOLVED] EFI grub Install problems

skwid · 2013-11-19 15:43:25

I know this topic has been beat to death but I cannot for the life of me figure this out.

My Config:

1 Hard Drive -- /dev/sda

/dev/sda2 is EFI Partition.

/dev/sda5 is /mnt/boot during the install

/dev/sda6 is /mnt/ during the install

PC has windows 8.1 installed and booting fine with rEFInd installed. I run through the basic arch installation and mount my /dev/sda2 to /boot/ like in the beginners guide.

I chroot and do the commands below: (from the wiki)

# mount -t efivarfs efivarfs /sys/firmware/efi/efivars              # ignore if already mounted
# pacman -S grub efibootmgr
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=arch_grub --recheck

It installs fine, and then I run:

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

It completes as well, and im left with a EFI/arch_grub/something.efi and then a /grub folder with the config in it on my EFI partition.

When I reboot, grub completly takes over and doesnt boot anything. Just stuck at grub2>...

I have to boot off live CD and remove the EFI/arch_grub folder and the other grub folder to be able to boot windows again.

What am I doing wrong here?

Any help is appreciated....

Last edited by skwid (2013-11-19 17:38:01)

BahbGTR · 2013-11-19 16:20:30

skwid wrote:

# mount -t efivarfs efivarfs /sys/firmware/efi/efivars              # ignore if already mounted
# pacman -S grub efibootmgr
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=arch_grub --recheck

Are you sure you pointed grub-install to the correct directory with --efi-directory=/boot? Are you sure that shouldn't be /boot/efi?

teateawhy · 2013-11-19 16:29:36

You mounted the boot partition on sda5 to /boot, instead of mounting the ESP on sda2 to /boot. The beginner's guide expects you to mount the ESP to /boot.

Last edited by teateawhy (2013-11-19 16:30:08)

graysky · 2013-11-19 16:31:40

Looking back at my history, I ran `grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=arch --recheck` with the following:
* boot partition was mounted to /boot
* ESP was mounted to /boot/efi

Try doing the same.

skwid · 2013-11-19 16:52:32

teateawhy wrote:

You mounted the boot partition on sda5 to /boot, instead of mounting the ESP on sda2 to /boot. The beginner's guide expects you to mount the ESP to /boot.

Ok, I went back and re-done the entire thing and made sure I mounted /dev/sda5 to /boot. That left me with a /boot/EFI folder which my refind and microsoft folders are in.

Ran through the installs and everything went fine. I have a /boot/EFI/arch_grub/grubx64.efi file and a /boot/efi/grub/ folder with the grub.cfg file. No errors.

Rebooted, and same thing. reFINd no longer runs first, grub does. grub is broken because there are no kernel lines or anything.

When I reboot the PC and select the boot menu in the BIOS, I get a UEFI entry for "arch_grub" and I can select it and it boots to the broken grub.

I can select rEFInd and it will run, but not automatically like it used to.

If I remove all the arch_grub and grub folder from my EFI partition, then everything works, but of course, no arch.

skwid · 2013-11-19 17:22:57

Ahhh! I got it working. Turns out I was generating the fstab without the ESP mounted /boot like mentioned. I was installing grub right, but not mounting boot.

Anyway, thank you everyone for your support. The only problem I have now is how to get rEFInd to start up instead of grub so I can select windows when needed. It seems grub just has taken over completely.

Any suggestions on that?

the.ridikulus.rat · 2013-11-19 17:36:14

skwid wrote:

The only problem I have now is how to get rEFInd to start up instead of grub so I can select windows when needed. It seems grub just has taken over completely.
Any suggestions on that?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … menu_entry

srs5694 · 2013-11-20 20:31:04

skwid wrote:

Anyway, thank you everyone for your support. The only problem I have now is how to get rEFInd to start up instead of grub so I can select windows when needed. It seems grub just has taken over completely.

You need to use one of:

efibootmgr in Linux, and in particular its "-o" option. See here for details.
bcfg in an EFI shell. See here for details.
bcdedit in Windows. See here for details.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-11-19 15:43:25

[SOLVED] EFI grub Install problems

#2 2013-11-19 16:20:30

Re: [SOLVED] EFI grub Install problems

#3 2013-11-19 16:29:36

Re: [SOLVED] EFI grub Install problems

#4 2013-11-19 16:31:40

Re: [SOLVED] EFI grub Install problems

#5 2013-11-19 16:52:32

Re: [SOLVED] EFI grub Install problems

#6 2013-11-19 17:22:57

Re: [SOLVED] EFI grub Install problems

#7 2013-11-19 17:36:14

Re: [SOLVED] EFI grub Install problems

#8 2013-11-20 20:31:04

Re: [SOLVED] EFI grub Install problems

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