Arch Linux

MrcJkb

Member

Registered: 2017-10-12

Posts: 23

ThinkPad P40 Yoga - GRUB won't load

So I decided to install arch on my Lenovo ThinkPad P40 Yoga, carefully following the Arch Wiki instructions for a UEFI boot.
I have GPT-partitioned the disk as follows:

Device        Size       Type
/dev/sda1     1G         EFI System
/dev/sda2     342.8G    Linux Filesystem
/dev/sda3     2G         Linux swap
/dev/sda4     130.2G    EFI System

sda4 is a backup of my documents from my old Windows installation that I plan to later mount to a folder in my /home directory.

I installed grub in chroot, using the following commands, all returning a success message:

pacman -S intel-ucode
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

After rebooting, the device first loaded the Windows boot manager (which appears to be installed on a separate disk and of course couldn't find Windows), so I moved it down in the BIOS boot order priority list.
But GRUB still wouldn't load after rebooting. Now it just shows a boot device list.
I tried moving grubx64.efi to the boot partition root, as suggested here https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 60#p981560, but that didn't work either.
Renaming it to bootx64.efi and changing from quick boot to diagnostics (as suggested here https://superuser.com/questions/737565/ … -boot-menu also didn't work.

'efibootmgr -v' shows the following:

BootCurrent: 001B
Timeout: 2 seconds
BootOrder: 0019,0010,0011,0012,0013,0018,0017,001A,001C,001B,0000,0021
Boot0000* Winows Boot Manager HD(1,GPT,...
Boot0001* grub HD(2,GPT,3bfcb53f-6e6c-4ed4-b6a5-776e449d1b17,0x3b7ec800,0x1f4a8f)/File(\EFI\grub\grubx64.efi)
Boot0010 Setup FvFile(...
Boot0011 Boot Menu...
Boot0012 Diagnostic Splash Screen...
Boot0012 Lenovo Diagnostics...
Boot0014 Startup Interrupt Menu...
Boot0015 Rescue and Recovery...
Boot0016 MEBx Hot Key...
Boot0017* USB CD...
Boot0018* USB FD...
Boot0019* ATA HDD0...
...
etc.

Before rebooting, 0001 (grub) was first in the boot order, so somehow the EFI boot loader seems to forget it when rebooting.

Last edited by MrcJkb (2017-10-16 21:54:12)

Slithery

Administrator

From: Norfolk, UK

Registered: 2013-12-01

Posts: 5,776

Re: ThinkPad P40 Yoga - GRUB won't load

Why is sda4 an EFI partition? Surely it should be NTFS.

This is probably confusing your bootloader.

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No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

aur - dotfiles

MrcJkb

Member

Registered: 2017-10-12

Posts: 23

Re: ThinkPad P40 Yoga - GRUB won't load

sda4 was formatted as ntfs in Windows.
I noticed it had a boot flag set, which I toggled off using parted. Now parted lists it as 'ntfs' with the flag 'msftdata' and fdisk lists it as "Microsoft Basic Data".
But the boot loader still won't start GRUB.

MrcJkb

Member

Registered: 2017-10-12

Posts: 23

Re: ThinkPad P40 Yoga - GRUB won't load

I ended up using systemd-boot instead of grub.
Now I can boot into Arch Linux without any issues.

I'm not sure if I should mark this as solved though, since it solved my problem of not being able to boot, but I didn't get GRUB to work.

cfr

Member

From: Cymru

Registered: 2011-11-27

Posts: 7,132

Re: ThinkPad P40 Yoga - GRUB won't load

If you installed grub with two partitions marked as EFI, I don't know what the expected behaviour would be but probably not 'works as expected' :-).

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MrcJkb

Member

Registered: 2017-10-12

Posts: 23

Re: ThinkPad P40 Yoga - GRUB won't load

If you installed grub with two partitions marked as EFI, I don't know what the expected behaviour would be but probably not 'works as expected' :-).

I had formatted the sda4 partition as NTFS when creating it in the old Windows installation before installing Arch. I have no idea how it got the boot flag. Anyhow, clearing the boot flag caused the partition to be recognized as NTFS again. And GRUB still wouldn't load. So I doubt it had anything to do with the way sda4 is/was formatted.
I believe it is more likely that the UEFI expected a certain path to the bootloader binaries and couldn't find it with GRUB. Since I got it working with systemd-boot and am content with the performance, I won't be doing any more troubleshooting.

Last edited by MrcJkb (2017-10-19 23:41:18)