[SOLVED] Trouble Installing UEFI Bootloaders

fyzx92 · 2016-01-31 20:31:26

I have been trying to dual boot Arch and Windows 10 on my Thinkpad E450, but have run into difficulties. Ultimately my questions are these: Why are the bootloaders not installing, and what should I do to fix it?

First, under windows settings, it says that I have a UEFI motherboard and I have also gone into my firmware setup and verified that UEFI mode is on, and Secure Boot is disabled. When partitioning, gparted and parted both said that I have a GPT partition table. However, when I run

ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

, it says that the directory doesn't exist.

My hard drive has 7 partitions- 5 are for windows, and I have a /boot partition and a /home partition. I have /boot formatted to FAT32, as listed in the Beginner's Guide, and the /home formatted as ext4. However,

lsblk -f

lists it as VFAT. Which one is the actual format, and could it be causing issues?

Because I couldn't be sure about the type of the motherboard, I tried different partition schemes and formats:
separate swap, /home, /boot, and / partitions (all ext4, and with /boot as FAT32)
/home and /boot (both FAT32, both ext4, /boot FAT32 with /home ext4)
Am I missing a partition? I know the BG says to have a EFI System Partition, but I wasn't sure if that would be in the Windows section of my hard drive, or if that was synonymous with the /boot drive, or if it required an entirely separate partition.

With all of these schemes, once I got to the bootloader installation, I tried installing both GRUB using

pacman -S grub os-prober

and systemd-boot with

bootctl install

. I received the following errors.
GRUB:

warning: database file for 'core' does not exist
warning: database file for 'extra' does not exist
warning: database file for 'community' does not exist
error: target not found: grub
error: target not found: os-prober

systemd-boot:

File system "/boot" is not a FAT EFI System Partition (ESP) file system.

I found a bootloader called rEFInd, and was wondering if I should go that route.

I have referenced these links to look for help, but have not found any solutions:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=207762
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=207311
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/REFInd

Than you for your help

EDIT: I corrected the text on the error messages for GRUB and systemd-boot
EDIT2: I marked it as solved, and clarified the subject a little further

Last edited by fyzx92 (2016-02-01 03:47:53)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-01-31 20:46:33

fyzx92 wrote:

under windows settings, it says that I have a UEFI motherboard and I have also gone into my firmware setup and verified that UEFI mode is on, and Secure Boot is disabled. When partitioning, gparted and parted both said that I have a GPT partition table. However, when I run
ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
, it says that the directory doesn't exist.

Try disabling "CSM" or "Legacy" mode to force a UEFI boot.

Even if you are not booted in UEFI mode, it is possible to install a working UEFI system by placing the systemd-boot .efi loader at at $ESP/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI -- I prefer to use this method as the boot is not dependent on a specific NVRAM entry.

For more, see http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloader … ive-naming

We need to see the output of:

# parted -l

Just to note: if you want to use systemd-boot then you will have to share the Windows-generated EFI system partition and mount it to /boot

The EFI system partition needs to be type EF00 ("boot, esp" in gparted) and must be FAT-formatted.

fyzx92 · 2016-01-31 21:08:38

The output of

parted -l

is:

 Model: ATA ST500LM021-1KJ15 (scsi
Disk/dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table:gpt
DiskFlags:

Number    Start            End          Size            File system     Name                                         Flags
1              1049kB       1050MB    1049MB      ntfs                                                                    boot, hidden, esp 
2              1050MB      1322MB    273MB        fat32               EFI system partition                   boot, esp
3              1322MB      1456MB    134MB                               Microsoft reserved partition       msftres
4              1456MB      211GB       210GB        ntfs                 Basic data partition                   msftdata
6              221GB        222GB       537MB        fat32                                                                 msftdata
7              222GB        484GB       262GB        ext4
5              484GB        500GB      16.0GB        ntfs                                                                   hidden, diag

It then has some info about the usb drive

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-01-31 21:16:29

fyzx92 wrote:

Number    Start            End          Size            File system     Name                                         Flags
1              1049kB       1050MB    1049MB      ntfs                                                                    boot, hidden, esp 
2              1050MB      1322MB    273MB        fat32               EFI system partition                   boot, esp

Did you change the flags on /dev/sda1?

What directories and files are present on /dev/sda2?

If there is an EFI/Microsoft/Boot directory then that partition is the Windows ESP and should be used for /boot

We will need to see the error messages to troubleshoot this properly.

See https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855

fyzx92 · 2016-01-31 21:37:31

I have not messed with the windows partitions, so the flags on /dev/sda1 should be the same as it was originally.

I don't know how to view files on that partition. It should be visible in windows, right?

Where would I find the EFI/Microsoft/Boot directory? Does that have the same answer as the previous question?

Which error messages in particular do you need? I can give the output of

ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

and

lsblk -f

. I will be sure to include the full error messages in the future.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-01-31 21:46:09

fyzx92 wrote:

I don't know how to view files on that partition.

From the Arch live ISO:

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
ls -R /mnt

#spoonfeed

The errors in your OP edit show that /boot was mounted to the wrong partition and you didn't have an internet connection when you tried to install the new packages.

Please tell me that you haven't been following some random YouTube "guide" to install your system.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2016-01-31 21:46:25)

Rethil · 2016-01-31 21:49:00

fyzx92 wrote:

With all of these schemes, once I got to the bootloader installation, I tried installing both GRUB using
pacman -S grub os-prober

You've installed packages, not bootloader itself.

To install grub for EFI/GPT:

# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=$esp --bootloader-id=grub --recheck

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … allation_2

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-01-31 22:05:33

^ Can we stick to systemd-boot for now please?

Introducing another bootloader will just confuse the issue.

Rethil · 2016-01-31 22:26:17

Sure, but someone should've point that issue with grub installation from OP anyway.

fyzx92 · 2016-01-31 23:04:05

Okay: /dev/sda2 does have the EFI/Microsoft/Boot directory, thank you for showing me how to view that. I had tried mounting it and using cd, but that was not working. To set this up correctly, then, I should use /dev/sda2 for /boot, and remove what is now /dev/sda6 and just have a total of 6 partitions:4 windows, 1 boot, 1 Arch. Do I need to check if /dev/sda2 is of type EF00, or can that be assumed by the fact that it is the windows boot partition?

No, I have not been following any Youtube guides.

I just pinged google.com to verify my internet connection, and I still received the same error for installing GRUB.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-01-31 23:09:43

fyzx92 wrote:

To set this up correctly, then, I should use /dev/sda2 for /boot

Yes.

fyzx92 wrote:

Do I need to check if /dev/sda2 is of type EF00

You already have, the "boot, esp" flag in the `parted` output shows that it is the correct type.

fyzx92 wrote:

I just pinged google.com to verify my internet connection, and I still received the same error for installing GRUB.

Have you un-commented some mirrors in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist?

Try:

# pacman -Syu $PACKAGE

At any rate, we don't need any extra packages because systemd-boot is included in the base system.

Also, that command installs the GRUB package but does *not* install the bootloader to the disk, as noted by @Rethil

fyzx92 · 2016-02-01 03:41:30

After repartitioning my hard drive to have only a Linux data partition, and mounting the existing windows EFI system partition, I was successfully able to install the systemd-boot bootloader. Thank you for your help

Arch Linux

#1 2016-01-31 20:31:26

[SOLVED] Trouble Installing UEFI Bootloaders

#2 2016-01-31 20:46:33

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Installing UEFI Bootloaders

#3 2016-01-31 21:08:38

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Installing UEFI Bootloaders

#4 2016-01-31 21:16:29

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Installing UEFI Bootloaders

#5 2016-01-31 21:37:31

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Installing UEFI Bootloaders

#6 2016-01-31 21:46:09

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Installing UEFI Bootloaders

#7 2016-01-31 21:49:00

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Installing UEFI Bootloaders

#8 2016-01-31 22:05:33

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Installing UEFI Bootloaders

#9 2016-01-31 22:26:17

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Installing UEFI Bootloaders

#10 2016-01-31 23:04:05

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Installing UEFI Bootloaders

#11 2016-01-31 23:09:43

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Installing UEFI Bootloaders

#12 2016-02-01 03:41:30

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Installing UEFI Bootloaders

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