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#1 2014-04-07 21:32:21

Lustique
Member
From: DE
Registered: 2013-11-15
Posts: 17

[SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

Hi everybody,
I have the following problem concerning an install of Arch via a USB stick on an "UEFI system" (I hope my topic name is descriptive enough): 

Today I wiped my hard drive to set up my system anew, because Windows 7 was too old (i.e. too much crap had piled up), and I lacked a real Linux (I only had Linux Mint installed via the Windows installer (similar to "ubi"), because I was afraid of the whole "UEFI" thing, because I never installed Linux on an UEFI system before). I then reinstalled Windows 7, as I am aiming at a dual boot setup, and Windows 7 created an EFI partition and the system partition for Windows itself (I left about half of my hdd untouched for Arch).

Beforehand, I had a USB stick with archlinux-2014.03.01-dual.iso prepared (using "Universal USB Installer" in Windows with the correct label). I then booted using the USB stick and after some fiddling (because of the "Failed to install override security policy."-bug, I had to "cp EFI/boot/loader.efi to EFI/boot/bootx64.efi" as suggested here), I got to the menu where there are 3 options:
- "Arch Linux archiso x86_64 UEFI CD"
- two UEFI shell entries (v1 and v2)

Selecting the first option, the only thing I got was a black screen (with two narrow stripes of grey at the top and bottom of the screen), no command prompt or anything, and that's it. It seems it's the same situation described here.
Selecting the v2 UEFI shell, I get an error (I can't remember the error code, but if it's important, I can check).
Selecting the v1 UEFI shell, I get to a shell (named "shell", in yellow), and some message about a "startup.nsh" script, and all I get after waiting the promised 5 (?) sec, after which something was announced to happen (probably concerning the "startup.nsh" script), nothing happens. The only thing I get is "shell > ", and I guess that's not the thing that was supposed to happen.

I then got the current iso (archlinux-2014.04.01-dual.iso) and created an installation medium as suggested in the wiki ("USB Installation Media") using dd on another Arch machine, but nothing changed. I'm still stuck at the UEFI shell (v1) or the black screen as described above.

I hope there's an easy fix for this, because after a couple of hours of installing drivers, a service pack and a gazillion of Windows updates, I was really looking forward to installing and using Arch on this machine.

By the way, my motherboard is an "ASRock H67M-GE/HT".

Last edited by Lustique (2014-04-09 21:11:33)

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#2 2014-04-07 21:36:49

Inxsible
Forum Fellow
From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: [SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

how did you create the installation usb ?

Did you follow the Beginners' Guide ? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide


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There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots !

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#3 2014-04-07 21:51:21

Lustique
Member
From: DE
Registered: 2013-11-15
Posts: 17

Re: [SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

Inxsible wrote:

how did you create the installation usb ?

Did you follow the Beginners' Guide ? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide

First I used "Universal USB Installer" in Windows (with the outdated iso) and then dd with Arch (with the current iso as of today), as suggested in the wiki. Concerning the USB stick: I previously installed Arch using this stick, so the stick itself should be ok.

Yes, I tried to follow the Beginner's Guide, but I only got to "Boot the installation medium" (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … ion_medium), because I never got to the live environment. (And I know how that is supposed to look, because I managed to install Arch on multiple occasions when there was no UEFI involved, although I'm still a beginner, as you correctly guessed  smile)

I saw "[MOOT] UEFI USB Install (from 201306 image) - blank screen during boot" by the way, and it seems I'm dealing with the same issue, but I thought I should still post my own question, because it concerns a current iso, and I'm probably rather restricted in the use of workarounds, since I already have Windows 7 installed and really don't want to install that thing again in the near future.

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#4 2014-04-09 19:45:33

Lustique
Member
From: DE
Registered: 2013-11-15
Posts: 17

Re: [SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

OK, apparently a BIOS(/UEFI ???) update did the trick. I just upgraded my BIOS (or UEFI?, not so sure about the terminology) and tried to use my USB install stick again. Now I got to the live system without any problems. Should I mark this thread as "[SOLVED]" now, or am I allowed to keep it open until I managed to actually get Arch on my machine? (After I saw that I finally got into the live system, I just rebooted because I don't want to do the install right now.)

On another note: I also rechecked if Windows 7 is actually installed in UEFI mode, and apparently it's not. The system partition I thought Windows created for (U)EFI, is formatted in NTFS, so apparently Windows was installed in BIOS legacy mode. Would you recommed to install Arch in BIOS legacy mode as well? It seems my BIOS prefers that legacy mode over UEFI mode by default anyway, even after the upgrade after which I had to load default settings (which caused my fans to go haywire (full power), so I ran some Windows hardware monitoring program, which told me "UEFI Boot" was "Not enabled").

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#5 2014-04-09 20:08:36

Gulver
Member
Registered: 2013-05-24
Posts: 208

Re: [SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

Running bot in BIOS would save you the pain of bios configuration upon every switch of OS. Also, if you open up other topics for different subjects it would be easy for engines to catch the context so others can find easily.

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#6 2014-04-09 20:51:02

jasonwryan
Anarchist
From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

Lustique wrote:

OK, apparently a BIOS(/UEFI ???) update did the trick. I just upgraded my BIOS (or UEFI?, not so sure about the terminology) and tried to use my USB install stick again. Now I got to the live system without any problems. Should I mark this thread as "[SOLVED]" now, or am I allowed to keep it open until I managed to actually get Arch on my machine? (After I saw that I finally got into the live system, I just rebooted because I don't want to do the install right now.)

Read Rod Smith's site for details on the terminology. As the topic of this thread is UEFI, you should mark this one solved and then only open another if/when you come a cropper in your BIOS installation.


Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

Registered Linux User #482438

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#7 2014-04-21 12:25:08

skinnie
Member
From: Portugal
Registered: 2012-10-17
Posts: 16

Re: [SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

Sorry to bump this thread, but I have the exact same problem.
The "problem" is that I already have the latest bios on my Thinkpad X230 (2.60).
I used archlinux-2014.04.01-dual.iso and I can boot to the two UEFI shell entries (v1 and v2).
If it matters I can sucessfully boot Ubuntu 14.04 and I am running my X230 in UEFI mode (not legacy) and running a Windows 7 UEFI installation.
I followed this wiki but it didn't solved: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_guide/Preparation#Troubleshooting_boot_problems

Any hint?


Lenovo Thinkpad X230/12.5' Flexview IPS/Samsung 830 256Gb SSD/16GB DDR3/Intel HD4000/Intel 6205 Wifi

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#8 2014-04-21 20:30:52

Gulver
Member
Registered: 2013-05-24
Posts: 208

Re: [SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

I would suggest you to burn a CD. It's like a cent to buy, plus you will need it much more than you think you will.

I never had a successful USB making from a windows OS, only dd in another Linux env was able to do the trick.
Last week I was trying to install windows to use a native software, USB said some partitions were out of order, aborted the process. After that, it complained about missing checks, or something. I was downloading another torrent ( shh, don't tell anyone tongue ) when I give burning it to CD a try and alas it just worked. I'm sorry for boring you with my stupid anecdotes but for short, Usb doesn't quite work like a CD.

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#9 2014-04-21 23:36:22

skinnie
Member
From: Portugal
Registered: 2012-10-17
Posts: 16

Re: [SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

Gulver wrote:

I would suggest you to burn a CD. It's like a cent to buy, plus you will need it much more than you think you will.

I never had a successful USB making from a windows OS, only dd in another Linux env was able to do the trick.
Last week I was trying to install windows to use a native software, USB said some partitions were out of order, aborted the process. After that, it complained about missing checks, or something. I was downloading another torrent ( shh, don't tell anyone tongue ) when I give burning it to CD a try and alas it just worked. I'm sorry for boring you with my stupid anecdotes but for short, Usb doesn't quite work like a CD.

I wouldn't mind burning one but my computer doesn't have optical drive.
I never had any problem installing either windows or Linux distro (arch included, using win32diskimager), so guess this may be really a bug.


Lenovo Thinkpad X230/12.5' Flexview IPS/Samsung 830 256Gb SSD/16GB DDR3/Intel HD4000/Intel 6205 Wifi

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#10 2014-04-22 10:37:41

Gulver
Member
Registered: 2013-05-24
Posts: 208

Re: [SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

May using the image of last month work smile

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#11 2014-04-27 12:04:49

catalin.hritcu
Member
From: Paris, France
Registered: 2014-04-27
Posts: 26
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

Same symptoms as skinnie on a ThinkPad T440p. I've tried updating the "BIOS" (the version I've got now is 2014-03-24) but it didn't help in any way. I need to use UEFI because I want to dual boot Windows 8 (UEFI).

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#12 2014-04-27 12:22:31

catalin.hritcu
Member
From: Paris, France
Registered: 2014-04-27
Posts: 26
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

Just to add some context: I'm trying to switch to Arch, and it's a bit frustrating to fail so early in the process given that I've tried the whole process in a VM already. Booting the Arch USB key in BIOS mode worked fine, but as I said, I need UEFI. I've also already tried all the hints here https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … t_problems but they didn't help.

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#13 2014-04-27 14:27:39

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: [SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

You can simply install Arch from a bios booted machine and still set up UEFI bootability.  You just won't be able to write firmware entries from within the live environment, but this isn't entirely problematic since you can still use the "default" loader position \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI to get whatever you want up and running.  So for example, you just stick gummiboot in that position, configure it (make the necessary \EFI\loader heirarchy), and you should be good.

Furthermore, a bios bootloader and a UEFI bootloader can happily co-exist.  So you can simply get it up and running with legacy bios booting and then work on wrapping your head around the whole UEFI thing.  Linux happily supports the combination of UEFI and GPT (unlike the other OS on your machine).

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#14 2014-04-27 20:54:00

catalin.hritcu
Member
From: Paris, France
Registered: 2014-04-27
Posts: 26
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Installation (USB, UEFI) stuck after "Arch Linux [...] UEFI"

Thanks a lot for the advice WonderWoofy. I was indeed wondering if it's possible to set up UEFI afterwards, so I'm a lot more relieved now and will go on installing Arch smile

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