Arch Linux

drymisty

Member

Registered: 2016-02-13

Posts: 5

Grub not working although there are no errors during installation.

Hi, I'm trying to install Arch on my computer using MBR to boot.
After installing grub to /dev/sda and doing grub-mkconfig with no output errors.
After restarting I get booted straight to Windows 10.

Note: I've had a Manjaro installation before that had the same problem after a Windows update, so I decided to try Arch.

Thanks in advance for any help you give.

Last edited by drymisty (2019-02-04 22:36:32)

Trianda

Member

Registered: 2019-01-24

Posts: 25

Re: Grub not working although there are no errors during installation.

Does grub-mkconfig display all your operating systems? Could you say a few words about your partitions?

drymisty

Member

Registered: 2016-02-13

Posts: 5

Re: Grub not working although there are no errors during installation.

Does grub-mkconfig display all your operating systems? Could you say a few words about your partitions?

grub-mkconfig doesn't display Windows, this is the output:

Generating the grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-linux
Found initrd image: /boot/initramfs-linux.img
Found fallback initrd image(s) in /boot: initramfs-linux-fallback.img
WARNING: Failed to connect to lvmetad. Falling back to device scanning.
WARNING: Device /dev/loop0 not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.

(And the last warning repeats with every partition)

Also, these are my partitions

/dev/sda1 - 195GB - Windows 10
/dev/sda2 - 28GB - Arch "/" mount point

/dev/sdb1 - 550MB - Windows 10 recovery
/dev/sdb2 - 397GB - NTFS partition
/dev/sdb3 - 67.6GB - Linux "/home" mount point

Edit: I know I said that there were no errors but according to the wiki these warnings should be ignored. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … _in_chroot
Edit 2: After installing ntfs-3g, grub detects Windows 10, however the problem persists and when I turn on my pc it boots straight to Windows.

Last edited by drymisty (2019-02-05 02:46:41)

Rydberg95

Member

From: Stockholm, Sweden

Registered: 2013-01-25

Posts: 51

Re: Grub not working although there are no errors during installation.

I'm not using MBR myself, but I figured I might try to help you anyway.

Did you follow the wiki (more specifically https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB) throughout the installation process?

What commands did you run in the process of installing GRUB?

Do you see an option to boot from anything but Windows in your BIOS boot order?

jamespharvey20

Member

Registered: 2015-06-09

Posts: 129

Re: Grub not working although there are no errors during installation.

As Rydberg95 said, we really need to know the commands run.

My bet is grub-install was ran given the wrong block device.  It needs to be given the hard drive the BIOS is booting.

Giving it a partition such as /dev/sda2 or /dev/sdb3 will appear to succeed, but it won't be used for booting.

Giving it /dev/sda if your BIOS is booting /dev/sdb, or visa-versa, will appear to succeed, but also won't be used for booting.  This is where my money's at - that the BIOS is booting off the drive that grub isn't installed on.

drymisty

Member

Registered: 2016-02-13

Posts: 5

Re: Grub not working although there are no errors during installation.

As Rydberg95 said, we really need to know the commands run.

My bet is grub-install was ran given the wrong block device.  It needs to be given the hard drive the BIOS is booting.

Giving it a partition such as /dev/sda2 or /dev/sdb3 will appear to succeed, but it won't be used for booting.

Giving it /dev/sda if your BIOS is booting /dev/sdb, or visa-versa, will appear to succeed, but also won't be used for booting.  This is where my money's at - that the BIOS is booting off the drive that grub isn't installed on.

I fixed this using boot-repair https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
The commands I ran were:

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

and

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

My BIOS is booting /dev/sda, /dev/sdb boots to Windows recovery.

Last edited by drymisty (2019-02-06 00:30:48)

Rydberg95

Member

From: Stockholm, Sweden

Registered: 2013-01-25

Posts: 51

Re: Grub not working although there are no errors during installation.

I fixed this using boot-repair https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
The commands I ran were:

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

and

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

My BIOS is booting /dev/sda, /dev/sdb boots to Windows recovery.

So, the issue is fixed now?

It's strange, since those commands should install GRUB in the right place.

drymisty

Member

Registered: 2016-02-13

Posts: 5

Re: Grub not working although there are no errors during installation.

I fixed this using boot-repair https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
The commands I ran were:

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

and

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

My BIOS is booting /dev/sda, /dev/sdb boots to Windows recovery.

So, the issue is fixed now?

It's strange, since those commands should install GRUB in the right place.

Yes, I don't know if I should mark this as solved since we don't know what was the problem, but in the past I managed to successfully install grub without problems.