Arch Linux

joepallaria

Member

Registered: 2018-05-25

Posts: 2

[SOLVED] Bootloader confusion on multiple disks under UEFI

Hey, I'm confused about the bootloader process for my multi-disk drive setup. The setup I'm working on now has 2 disks: 1 nvmeSSD disk with windows/arch on it and 1 SSD disk with just arch on it. Here is the partition setup:

nvmeSSD:
/dev/nvme0n1
    p1   Microsoft Reserved     16MB
    p2   Basic data partition     500MB
    p3   EFI system partition    100MB
    p4   Basic data partition     172GB
    p5   Linux x86-64 root (/)   30GB
    p6   Linux Swap                  8GB
    p7   Linux /home                255GB

SSD:
/dev/sda
    sda1  EFI System                  550MB
    sda2  Linux x86-64 root (/)   32GB
    sda3  Linux swap                  6GB
    sda4  Linux /home                427GB

- After installation on both disks, I chrooted into the regular SSD and installed/configured grub.
- Grub picked up on arch for both drives as well as the win bootloader. efibootmgr told me grub will boot first, cool.
- BIOS saw 1 disk, so I went in, but once in the grub menu, my boot selection for the nvme arch did not boot. (blank screen)
- Windows boots normally, and the regular SSD arch boots normally.
- My BIOS only shows the 1 UEFI disk for booting. I was expecting the option to boot into 2 disks.
- What am I missing? I'm confused.

Last edited by joepallaria (2019-05-29 00:18:45)

Slithery

Administrator

From: Norfolk, UK

Registered: 2013-12-01

Posts: 5,776

Re: [SOLVED] Bootloader confusion on multiple disks under UEFI

With a UEFI setup you only need one EFI partition for all the drives.

You should have used the existing EFI partition on nvme0n1 when installing Arch on the second SSD rather than creating an additional one.

---

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

joepallaria

Member

Registered: 2018-05-25

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Bootloader confusion on multiple disks under UEFI

Ok, I figured out my bootloader problem. Here is my setup:

nvmeSSD:
/dev/nvme0n1
    p1    Basic Data Partition   499MB
    p2    EFI System Partition   100MB
    p3    Microsoft Reserved     16MB
    p4    Basic Data Partition    465GB

SSD:
    sda1   Linux x86-64 root (/)    30GB
    sda2    Linux Swap                  8GB
    sda3    Linux /home                195GB

I'm just going to have 2 separate drives, 1 for each OS. I could do dual-boot with this, but for now this is fine. Long story short, I found the option in my BIOS to select which boot manager to launch first.