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#1 2018-02-27 20:04:20

mries92
Member
Registered: 2016-11-10
Posts: 31

[SOLVED] Can't boot install media in UEFI mode with external drives.

Hello everybody, I posted about this a few months ago and it was never solved, but didn't want to bring back such an old thread.

Here is a link to my previous thread in case anybody wants to look through it. I have learned a lot about Linux in the intervening months and want to give this another go, but find I am still getting the exact same error when attempting to boot my installation media with my external drives plugged in. I have installed both Debian and Gentoo in EFI mode in the last few months with no issues, so this is something special to Arch. I really want to get this working, as even though Debian and Gentoo were great, I just enjoy using Arch so much more.

When selecting the boot device as my USB drive in UEFI mode, I get this error message. Just as before, when my external drives are unplugged the boot works just fine. Somebody in the previous thread mentioned that I likely had an EFI partition on these external disks that was causing it, but lsblk reveals there are only two partitions on each. One is a Microsoft Reserved Partition of 128mb because I formatted the drives from within windows, the other just being the rest of the disk formatted as ntfs.

If anybody has any idea what could be causing this I would greatly appreciate any help. Also I would like to add that I have been able to perform the installation successfully using BIOS mode, but I want to get the installation done correctly using UEFI. This is also not a dual boot with windows, they are on separate drives and I do not intend to have Grub detect my Windows installation.

Last edited by mries92 (2018-02-28 01:03:41)

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#2 2018-02-28 01:02:50

mries92
Member
Registered: 2016-11-10
Posts: 31

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot install media in UEFI mode with external drives.

Well guys, I hesitate to call this "solved" because I didn't necessarily find the underlying cause. But I will list the process I followed to get it working. Any one of these steps may have been the critical factor.

First I updated my motherboard BIOS and attempted to boot the install media as I had been, still getting the same two errors. exit_boot() failed and efi_main() failed. I then unplugged both drives and performed the installation, and set up my base system. I plugged the drives back in and rebooted and everything worked fine. It is strange because in my last thread the problem persisted even after I performed the initial installation with the drives removed.

At any rate, I am in business and happy to be back on Arch.

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