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#1 2017-10-16 21:26:32

warcram
Member
Registered: 2017-10-16
Posts: 8

System cannot find Arch Linux install

Hi there!

I've been trying to install Arch alongside of my Windows 10 installation for the best part of today, and it is installed.

However the only way I can access it, is by booting into live media and then chrooting in. I have tried installing grub and rEFInd to no avail, I just can't get my BIOS to detect the bootloader on the ESP.

The motherboard that I am running is an MSi Mortar B250M (not sure whether the firmware of the mobo could be affecting anything).

I have tried adding in entries manually through efibootmgr, tried changing my windows settings to point to the grub bootloader which again did not work.

Below are the outputs from relevant commands:


lsblk

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0    7:0    0 408.1M  1 loop 
sda      8:0    0 931.5G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   450M  0 part 
├─sda2   8:2    0   100M  0 part 
├─sda3   8:3    0    16M  0 part 
├─sda4   8:4    0   731G  0 part 
├─sda5   8:5    0   521M  0 part /boot
├─sda6   8:6    0   7.5G  0 part 
└─sda7   8:7    0  80.1G  0 part /
sdb      8:16   0 931.5G  0 disk 
└─sdb1   8:17   0 931.5G  0 part 
sdc      8:32   1  57.8G  0 disk 
└─sdc1   8:33   1  57.8G  0 part 
sdd      8:48   1  14.9G  0 disk 
└─sdd1   8:49   1  14.9G  0 part 

efibootmgr after restart

BootCurrent: 0009
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0003,0007,0009,0000,0006,0008
Boot0000  Hard Drive
Boot0003* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0006  USB HDD
Boot0007* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0008  USB KEY
Boot0009* UEFI: KingstonDataTraveler 3.0PMAP, Partition 1

efibootmgr after manually adding entry manually (command run below)

efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sda -p 5 -L "Arch" -l \vmlinuz_linux -u "root/dev/sda7 initrd=/initramfs-linux.img"

BootCurrent: 0009
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0001,0003,0007,0009,0000,0006,0008
Boot0000  Hard Drive
Boot0001* Arch
Boot0003* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0006  USB HDD
Boot0007* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0008  USB KEY
Boot0009* UEFI: KingstonDataTraveler 3.0PMAP, Partition 1

I am at a loss. Any help would be massively appreciated.

Cheers,

Warcram

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#2 2017-10-16 21:31:08

Slithery
Administrator
From: Norfolk, UK
Registered: 2013-12-01
Posts: 5,776

Re: System cannot find Arch Linux install

Welcome to the forums warcram smile

What's the output of...

lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT,LABEL,UUID

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

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#3 2017-10-16 21:37:04

warcram
Member
Registered: 2017-10-16
Posts: 8

Re: System cannot find Arch Linux install

slithery wrote:

Welcome to the forums warcram smile

What's the output of...

lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT,LABEL,UUID

Here you are:

lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT,LABEL,UUID

NAME   FSTYPE   SIZE MOUNTPOINT LABEL UUID
loop0         408.1M                  
sda           931.5G                  
├─sda1          450M                  
├─sda2          100M                  
├─sda3           16M                  
├─sda4          731G                  
├─sda5          521M /boot            
├─sda6          7.5G                  
└─sda7         80.1G /                
sdb           931.5G                  
└─sdb1        931.5G                  
sdc            57.8G                  
└─sdc1         57.8G                  
sdd            14.9G                  
└─sdd1         14.9G /mnt/USB         

Last edited by warcram (2017-10-16 21:44:39)

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#4 2017-10-16 21:46:25

Slithery
Administrator
From: Norfolk, UK
Registered: 2013-12-01
Posts: 5,776

Re: System cannot find Arch Linux install

Hmm, that should have shown the filesystem type for each partition. I'm not sure why it didn't.

What I'm trying to find out is if you have more than one ESP partition, can you tell us the filesystems/partition type all of the partitions on sda please.

Last edited by Slithery (2017-10-16 21:53:30)


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

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#5 2017-10-16 21:54:52

warcram
Member
Registered: 2017-10-16
Posts: 8

Re: System cannot find Arch Linux install

slithery wrote:

What I'm trying to find out is if you have more than one ESP partition, can you tell us what filesystems all of the partitions on sda are please.

I do have more than one ESP partition, however on previous installations of other distros (Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, Kali) that isn't a problem - is it for Arch?

NAME   FSTYPE   
sda                             
├─sda1  NTFS - recovery partition for windows                          
├─sda2  FAT32 - ESP for windows                      
├─sda3  Not sure, windows reserved                  
├─sda4  NTFS - Windows file system                    
├─sda5  FAT32 - ESP trying to install to               
├─sda6  swap area                   
└─sda7  ext4      

Whilst I wait for a response I will retry using windows ESP instead.

Thanks!

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#6 2017-10-16 22:03:26

Slithery
Administrator
From: Norfolk, UK
Registered: 2013-12-01
Posts: 5,776

Re: System cannot find Arch Linux install

One of the main design features of UEFI systems is that you only need one EFI partition to manage all of your OS's. If you have more than one then you're doing things wrong.

When installing Arch you should've used the existing ESP as /boot, at the moment your firmware is correctly using the 1st EFI partition on the drive which obviously doesn't contain the required Arch files.


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

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#7 2017-10-16 22:10:44

warcram
Member
Registered: 2017-10-16
Posts: 8

Re: System cannot find Arch Linux install

slithery wrote:

One of the main design features of UEFI systems is that you only need one EFI partition to manage all of your OS's. If you have more than one then you're doing things wrong.

When installing Arch you should've used the existing ESP as /boot, at the moment your firmware is correctly using the 1st EFI partition on the drive which obviously doesn't contain the required Arch files.

Right, I see where I'm going wrong now. I used the Windows ESP as the boot partition and got a bash shell to come up when booting into arch (which was now available).

Would you recommend a clean install where I wipe the old ESP and FS and start again using the existing ESP, or is there a way to fix my current install which is just booting into a grub shell?

Many many thanks Slithery!

Warcram

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#8 2017-10-17 16:25:23

warcram
Member
Registered: 2017-10-16
Posts: 8

Re: System cannot find Arch Linux install

Just to confirm that the issues raised in this topic were the issue I was having. I reinstalled Arch using the windows esp as the for the bootloader, everything else was the same and I am now writing this reply off my shiny new Arch setup with GDM.

Thanks again for all the help,

Hope this helps someone else,

Warcram

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#9 2017-10-17 17:11:50

Slithery
Administrator
From: Norfolk, UK
Registered: 2013-12-01
Posts: 5,776

Re: System cannot find Arch Linux install

Glad you got it sorted.

Don't forget to mark this thread [SOLVED].
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … ow_to_post


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

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#10 2017-10-22 23:49:39

cfr
Member
From: Cymru
Registered: 2011-11-27
Posts: 7,131

Re: System cannot find Arch Linux install

Just to say that you do not need to reinstall Arch in this case, you just need to adjust fstab, reinstall the kernel/initrd to the correct partition and reinstall or reconfigure the boot loader. It would be a good idea, however, to either delete or re-purpose the second ESP so that it is not marked as such, with the consequent potential for confusion.

Last edited by cfr (2017-10-22 23:50:03)


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