[SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

vegarab · 2018-01-16 18:31:14

I've been trying to install arch on my Thinkpad x250, but I always fail at the grub-installation or boot. I have tired directions for both using UEFI and legacy, none seem to been able to boot. In UEFI-mode I can't get grub-install to install to the /boot partition, trying:

 grub-install /dev/sda

 grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub

 grub-install --targe=i386-pc /dev/sda

Quite frankly I don't care about UEFI or legacy, I just want something that works on this laptop. I am planning on running Windows 10 alongside Arch though.

One of my biggest issues here is disk-labels and partition tables. I don't understand what or why. I several guides I have read (using cfdisk for partitioning) says that I want the label dos/msdos, others don't mention it and use GPT by default. I have tried intalling on the disk with dos and gpt (changing with parted -> mklabel) but with no luck.

What I want to do is make:
/dev/sda1 200MB /boot, /dev/sda2 30GB /, /dev/sda3 80GB /home.
I have seen a lot of inconcistency in mounting /dev/sda1 as /mnt/boot before installing.. why is that? Is this necessary at all?

I'd really appreciate some help here. I have installed Arch in legacy on an old x201 and UEFI on a Macbook without any off these issues.. I am really confused now after hours of troubleshooting.

Thanks.

Last edited by vegarab (2018-01-18 18:07:27)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-01-16 20:23:39

vegarab wrote:

I can't get grub-install to install to the /boot partition

Please post the error message(s), if any.

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

I am planning on running Windows 10 alongside Arch though

This will dictate your boot strategy — if Win10 is installed in UEFI mode then you should install Arch in UEFI mode also (sharing the EFI system partition is recommended but not mandatory).

several guides I have read

Please don't do that, there is only one guide that you should be following:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide

All other guides are outdated and/or error-ridden.

I have seen a lot of inconcistency

Then stop using rubbish "guides" and stick to the official documentation.

A UEFI system will need a GPT disk, for a non-UEFI system it is best to use an ms-dos ("MBR" type) partition table.

vegarab · 2018-01-16 20:41:45

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

vegarab wrote:
I can't get grub-install to install to the /boot partition
Please post the error message(s), if any.
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855
I am planning on running Windows 10 alongside Arch though
This will dictate your boot strategy — if Win10 is installed in UEFI mode then you should install Arch in UEFI mode also (sharing the EFI system partition is recommended but not mandatory).
several guides I have read
Please don't do that, there is only one guide that you should be following:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide
All other guides are outdated and/or error-ridden.
I have seen a lot of inconcistency
Then stop using rubbish "guides" and stick to the official documentation.
A UEFI system will need a GPT disk, for a non-UEFI system it is best to use an ms-dos ("MBR" type) partition table.

Alright. I'll make sure to boot in UEFI mode, set the disk to GPT.
However, I am still getting the "can not find EFI directory" error on grub-install. I have formatting /boot to vFAT aswell, but it didn't help.

Scimmia · 2018-01-16 20:52:21

Formatted to VFAT, but what partition type?

vegarab · 2018-01-16 20:59:20

Scimmia wrote:

Formatted to VFAT, but what partition type?

EFI System, set with cfdisk.
So
/dev/sda1 is 200MB set to vFAT, EFI System (/boot)
/dev/sda2 is 30GB set to ext4, Linux (/)
/dev/sda3 is 90GB set to ext4, Linux (/home)

parted /dev/sda print

Shows /dev/sda1 as boot, esp, so it should be correctly set to EFI System partition after installation (pacstrap).

Slithery · 2018-01-16 21:03:29

Did you actually mount the boot partition correctly before installing?

vegarab · 2018-01-16 21:21:55

slithery wrote:

Did you actually mount the boot partition correctly before installing?

With the partitions mentioned above I do the following to install:

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda1 /boot
mount /dev/sda3 /home
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel

I then generate fstab and install grub:

pacman -S grub os-prober
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub

and generate grub config. No errors shown.

Slithery · 2018-01-16 21:43:46

So the installation is successful.

What happens when you try to boot?

Ignore the above, 2ManyDogs has the correct answer below.

Last edited by Slithery (2018-01-16 21:47:41)

2ManyDogs · 2018-01-16 21:45:52

vegarab wrote:

With the partitions mentioned above I do the following to install:
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda1 /boot
mount /dev/sda3 /home
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel

Check the difference between how you mount boot and home and the Installation Guide: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … le_systems

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2018-01-16 21:46:50)

vegarab · 2018-01-18 18:06:16

2ManyDogs wrote:

vegarab wrote:
With the partitions mentioned above I do the following to install:
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda1 /boot
mount /dev/sda3 /home
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel
Check the difference between how you mount boot and home and the Installation Guide: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … le_systems

My bad, I typed wrong in the post. I mounted to /mnt/boot and /mnt/home, not /boot and /home.

Anyways, I solved the issue by:
Having disk set to GPT. / and /home partitioned to ext4, /boot partitioned to vFAT.
I then installed Arch as usual. However, when installing grub and os-prober packages, I also installed efibootmgr. This made the grub-install command from the GRUB-wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB under UEFI, run without errors. I could then successfully boot into the system with GRUB.

Slithery · 2018-01-18 18:24:50

vegarab wrote:

However, when installing grub and os-prober packages, I also installed efibootmgr.

So exactly what it told you to do in the wiki then...
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … allation_2

Pacman would also have told you to do this this when you installed grub.

Last edited by Slithery (2018-01-18 18:54:17)

vegarab · 2018-01-19 11:24:45

slithery wrote:

vegarab wrote:
However, when installing grub and os-prober packages, I also installed efibootmgr.
So exactly what it told you to do in the wiki then...
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … allation_2
Pacman would also have told you to do this this when you installed grub.

Yeah that is due to me reading guides outside of archwiki.org for GRUB-installation. Also pacman did not list efibootmgr as a dependencies or recommended package when installing grub and os-prober. I'll strictly stick to official sources when dealing with this kind of stuff from now on...

Slithery · 2018-01-19 11:47:49

vegarab wrote:

Also pacman did not list efibootmgr as a dependencies or recommended package when installing grub and os-prober.

Oh yes it did...

root@red:~# pacman -S grub
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Package (1)  New Version  Net Change

core/grub    2:2.02-4      29.99 MiB

Total Installed Size:  29.99 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] 
(1/1) checking keys in keyring                                                                          [#############################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking package integrity                                                                        [#############################################################] 100%
(1/1) loading package files                                                                             [#############################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking for file conflicts                                                                       [#############################################################] 100%
(1/1) checking available disk space                                                                     [#############################################################] 100%
:: Processing package changes...
(1/1) installing grub                                                                                   [#############################################################] 100%
Generating grub.cfg.example config file...
This may fail on some machines running a custom kernel.
done.
Optional dependencies for grub
    freetype2: For grub-mkfont usage [installed]
    fuse2: For grub-mount usage [installed]
    dosfstools: For grub-mkrescue FAT FS and EFI support [installed]
    efibootmgr: For grub-install EFI support
    libisoburn: Provides xorriso for generating grub rescue iso using grub-mkrescue
    os-prober: To detect other OSes when generating grub.cfg in BIOS systems [installed]
    mtools: For grub-mkrescue FAT FS support [installed]
:: Running post-transaction hooks...
(1/3) Cleaning pacman cache...
(2/3) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...
(3/3) Updating the info directory file...

Arch Linux

#1 2018-01-16 18:31:14

[SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

#2 2018-01-16 20:23:39

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

#3 2018-01-16 20:41:45

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

#4 2018-01-16 20:52:21

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

#5 2018-01-16 20:59:20

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

#6 2018-01-16 21:03:29

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

#7 2018-01-16 21:21:55

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

#8 2018-01-16 21:43:46

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

#9 2018-01-16 21:45:52

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

#10 2018-01-18 18:06:16

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

#11 2018-01-18 18:24:50

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

#12 2018-01-19 11:24:45

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

#13 2018-01-19 11:47:49

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot after installation on x250, UEFI nor legacy

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