Arch Linux

tylerpnn

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 20

Motherboard doesn't detect arch installation after windows install

I've had arch installed on my desktop already for a while, and earlier today i tried to install windows on a separate drive. Before I installed I made sure all of my other hard drives (including the one with arch on it) were unplugged. Even so, after installing windows I am no longer able to boot into arch. I tried reinstalling arch onto a different drive to see if something was wrong with my original drive, and that one won't boot either. For some reason, since installing windows, my motherboard is only able to boot from that 1 windows drive, and from my arch installation usb stick. I've tried resetting the CMOS but that didn't fix it. Next I might try updating the BIOS.

When I try to boot onto one of my arch drives I get the message: "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key".

The motherboard is an Asus Sabertooth z77

The version of windows that I installed is Windows 7 home premium.

EDIT: BIOS update didn't fix it.
EDIT2: Tried switching to GPT partition, didn't work.

Last edited by tylerpnn (2015-03-12 08:37:56)

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,732

Website

Re: Motherboard doesn't detect arch installation after windows install

If it's a EFI board, you need to chroot into the partition and run the grub-install script which should update the EFI menu.

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AUR packages • Zsh and other configs

tylerpnn

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 20

Re: Motherboard doesn't detect arch installation after windows install

If it's a EFI board, you need to chroot into the partition and run the grub-install script which should update the EFI menu.

I forgot to mention it in the OP, but yes, I did try that. Both chrooting in and reinstalling grub and installing arch fresh on a different drive do not work.

tylerpnn

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 20

Re: Motherboard doesn't detect arch installation after windows install

FIXED IT!!!!

I have no idea why, but installing windows made EFI boot partitions not work, even though its a modern UEFI motherboard. What I ended up doing to recover my original Arch install was:

1. Boot onto arch live install usb and mount my drive's partitions EXCLUDING THE EFI BOOT PARTITION
2. chroot into the installation and edit /etc/fstab to remove the line to auto-mount /boot
3. reinstall grub with the command

grub-install /dev/sdX
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

where X is your drive's major identifier
4. mount the OLD efi boot partition to a temporary directory and copy the vmlinuz-linux, initramfs-linux.img and initramfs-linux-fallback.img into the new boot directory.
5. run

mkinitcpio -p linux

6. reboot

Last edited by tylerpnn (2015-03-12 10:05:13)

alex.theoto

Member

From: Athens Greece

Registered: 2014-11-30

Posts: 307

Re: Motherboard doesn't detect arch installation after windows install

If your problem solved, please don't forget to mark your port as 'solved'