Arch Linux

erno

Member

Registered: 2009-08-24

Posts: 83

[SOLVED] Can't get to Grub after a recent upgrade

So i've been keeping my install up to date by doing pacman -Suy at least once a week. Yesterday I updated my BIOS to the latest version and ever since I've not been able to get to Grub. I just get a menu to select a boot device. Selecting my SSD makes the screen go blank for a while, sometimes longer but for around 2 seconds and I'm back to the menu again.

I have loaded BIOS defaults and also usen a needle to reset CMOS from the bottom of the machine.

Lenovo T440S, BIOS upgraded from 2.42 to 2.46 and now downgraded to 2.44

I can boot Arch/Mint and other distros via USB

BIOS settings are kept after saving them. I don't think I'm facing the notorious BIOS corrution bug.

Where to start troubleshooting? I can chroot into my system.

Setup:

basic LVM with root, home and boot and swap on separate volumes
UEFI and GPT
grub.cfg: linux    /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/mapper/vg0-root rw  quiet nowatchdog resume=/dev/mapper/vg0-swap

So: where to begin? Could this be an UUID issue? Should /boot/efi be populated? It's currently empty.

Last edited by erno (2018-01-03 19:23:40)

x33a

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2009-08-15

Posts: 4,587

Re: [SOLVED] Can't get to Grub after a recent upgrade

Have you tried reinstalling GRUB?

erno

Member

Registered: 2009-08-24

Posts: 83

Re: [SOLVED] Can't get to Grub after a recent upgrade

i have but i get the following error:

[root@manjaro /]# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=grub
Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
  WARNING: Failed to connect to lvmetad. Falling back to device scanning.
  WARNING: Failed to connect to lvmetad. Falling back to device scanning.
grub-install: error: /boot/efi doesn't look like an EFI partition.

mount:

/dev/mapper/vg0-root on /mnt type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
/dev/mapper/vg0-boot on /mnt/boot type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)

c00ter

Member

From: Alaskan in Washington State

Registered: 2014-08-28

Posts: 421

Re: [SOLVED] Can't get to Grub after a recent upgrade

[root@manjaro /]#

Is this Manjaro? Is that the problem?

---

UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn

erno

Member

Registered: 2009-08-24

Posts: 83

Re: [SOLVED] Can't get to Grub after a recent upgrade

i chroot in from manjaro live-usb since i can have arch-chroot there

Last edited by erno (2018-01-03 15:03:00)

x33a

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2009-08-15

Posts: 4,587

Re: [SOLVED] Can't get to Grub after a recent upgrade

You can have arch-chroot from the Arch Live media as well...

In any case, is /boot/efi even formatted as FAT32? How did you install the bootloader previously?

We are counting on you being honest about not having a Manjaro install, because if that's not the case, you will cease to get support from us.

erno

Member

Registered: 2009-08-24

Posts: 83

Re: [SOLVED] Can't get to Grub after a recent upgrade

I'm absolutely using arch linux. I'm only using Manjaro as a live environment to have a full desktop session plus arch-chroot and the repos available.

/boot is formatted ext4, i think this is the norm nowadays. no?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,435

Re: [SOLVED] Can't get to Grub after a recent upgrade

If your /boot is ext4 what is your efi partition? You will have to install GRUB into your EFI partition which must be vfat/FAT32 formatted, afterwards GRUB can handle the fact that the boot image is on an ext4 partition. However GRUB has to be on an EFI partition if you intend to boot from UEFI. What's the output of

lsblk -f

Last edited by V1del (2018-01-03 16:44:43)

erno

Member

Registered: 2009-08-24

Posts: 83

Re: [SOLVED] Can't get to Grub after a recent upgrade

Reinstalling Grub did the trick. I just got confused about ESP and boot partitions and didn't recall my procedure correctly when doing the initial install. Solved, thanks!