Arch Linux

kibartas

Member

Registered: 2019-01-29

Posts: 29

Can't boot into arch after installing grub

Hello. Recently I installed Windows as a secondary OS on my laptop. Everything was well, I had grub on arch and it all worked perfectly.

Then one day, for whatever reason, uefi boot manager no longer showed the partition that grub was on. I couldnt boot into arch.

Now, I tried to boot into arch throuth USB installation media (when I check efibootmgr -v, theres no entry for grub), reinstall grub, all that jazz. Everything seems okay. I reboot, and try going into uefi screen but after pressing f2 the screen just goes black with a non blinking cursor in top left corner. Then I switch it off, try again, still the same thing. I do this a couple times and then the laptop wont even turn on. After around a minute it finally boots, and UEFI screen is accessible but secure boot is Enabled (I had it disabled) and theres still no sign of grub.

I presume that motherboard restarts itself here. But why does this even happen anyway?

Thanks in advance. Dont know what logs to provide, I can if anythings needed.

GFdevelop

Member

Registered: 2017-09-18

Posts: 27

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

Hello. Recently I installed Windows as a secondary OS on my laptop. Everything was well, I had grub on arch and it all worked perfectly.

Have rebooted in the first day?

Now, I tried to boot into arch throuth USB installation media (when I check efibootmgr -v, theres no entry for grub), reinstall grub, all that jazz. Everything seems okay. I reboot, and try going into uefi screen but after pressing f2 the screen just goes black with a non blinking cursor in top left corner. Then I switch it off, try again, still the same thing. I do this a couple times and then the laptop wont even turn on. After around a minute it finally boots, and UEFI screen is accessible but secure boot is Enabled (I had it disabled) and theres still no sign of grub.

Have you mounted the right partition?

On my laptop I can open the UEFI menu with ESC key, this show me the boot entries (bootloaders and "SETUP"): go to SETUP and see the start options, try to set grub as first option and disable the secureboot, if you can't see grub you can try to add grub by set grubx64.efi

This is my directory tree:

$ tree -L 2 /boot/EFI/
/boot/EFI/
├── Boot
│   └── bootx64.efi
├── grub
│   └── grubx64.efi

Please post your laptop model/vendor, and the OS name and version that was preinstalled when you buy it.

sabroad

Member

Registered: 2015-05-24

Posts: 242

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

Now, I tried to boot into arch throuth USB installation media (when I check efibootmgr -v, theres no entry for grub), reinstall grub, all that jazz.

Did you grub-install from the installation arch-chroot?

[ISO] # arch-chroot /mnt
[chroot] # grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=esp --bootloader-id=GRUB

Everything seems okay. I reboot, and try going into uefi screen but after pressing f2 the screen just goes black with a non blinking cursor in top left corner.

If the /boot and esp filesystems aren't mounted to the expected (chroot) mountpoints grub-install may grub-mkimage using wrong location(s).

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saint_abroad

kibartas

Member

Registered: 2019-01-29

Posts: 29

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

Now, I tried to boot into arch throuth USB installation media (when I check efibootmgr -v, theres no entry for grub), reinstall grub, all that jazz.

Did you grub-install from the installation arch-chroot?

[ISO] # arch-chroot /mnt
[chroot] # grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=esp --bootloader-id=GRUB

Yup, that's exactly what I did. Mount both efi and root filesystems, Arch-chroot into the system and then grub-install following the instructions from the arch wiki (meaning that I generate the .cfg file after that)

kibartas

Member

Registered: 2019-01-29

Posts: 29

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

Have rebooted in the first day

Yes, it all worked perfectly. Windows and arch both showed up on grub screen.

Have you mounted the right partition?

Yea, Im sure theyre right. EFI on boot and root fs on /mnt

On my laptop I can open the UEFI menu with ESC key, this show me the boot entries (bootloaders and "SETUP"): go to SETUP and see the start options, try to set grub as first option and disable the secureboot, if you can't see grub you can try to add grub by set grubx64.efi

At the moment I'm unable to get into that system screen because it just shows a white underscore in top left corner. That happens after pressing F2, ESC does nothin.

Please post your laptop model/vendor, and the OS name and version that was preinstalled when you buy it.

Acer aspire 3
A315-51-32KW

It was windows 10, but I rewritten that with linux since september of last year

sabroad

Member

Registered: 2015-05-24

Posts: 242

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

Yea, Im sure theyre right. EFI on boot and root fs on /mnt

The EFI partition needs to be mounted within /mnt prior to chroot, eg. /mnt/boot/efi

What exactly were the mount commands used including and prior to the arch-chroot?

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saint_abroad

jwyx

Member

Registered: 2019-10-15

Posts: 3

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

Had the same problem. make sure you have "linux" and "linux-firmware" downloaded. You would usually do this step at pacstrapping. Without the kernel grub can't boot arch

kibartas

Member

Registered: 2019-01-29

Posts: 29

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

Yea, Im sure theyre right. EFI on boot and root fs on /mnt

The EFI partition needs to be mounted within /mnt prior to chroot, eg. /mnt/boot/efi

What exactly were the mount commands used including and prior to the arch-chroot?

mount /dev/sda3 /mnt (root partition)
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot (EFI partition)

kibartas

Member

Registered: 2019-01-29

Posts: 29

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

Had the same problem. make sure you have "linux" and "linux-firmware" downloaded. You would usually do this step at pacstrapping. Without the kernel grub can't boot arch

Everything works. I mean, I am ABLE to boot into arch through windows. I just can't get into the bios/efi screen at laptop's startup. I am able to boot into arch by going into windows, then into advanced startup options, choosing grub as the bootloader. Then laptop boots me into GRUB and it all works. The problem is, I can't change it so I boot into grub instead of windows at laptop startup. AND also I can't get into the efi screen, as I mentioned before. I have the linux and linux-firmware packages. As I said before, this all worked before. But then something happened with windows and now it doesn't let me get into the EFI screen

GFdevelop

Member

Registered: 2017-09-18

Posts: 27

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

If you can boot grub then you can open bios/efi setup to change your settings: open grub command line with c key and after enter command fwsetup

TarsolyGer

Member

From: Korea

Registered: 2019-05-19

Posts: 73

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

I am ABLE to boot into arch through windows. I just can't get into the bios/efi screen at laptop's startup.

Turn off fast boot in Windows. Some motherboards don't let you to go to your EFI settings when the system is woken up from hibernation, and when Windows boots using fast boot, it actually kinda hibernates the kernel. When doing a restart however, you should be able to get to the EFI settings (as well as if you turn off fast boot).

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The only way... is all the way!

kibartas

Member

Registered: 2019-01-29

Posts: 29

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

If you can boot grub then you can open bios/efi setup to change your settings: open grub command line with c key and after enter command fwsetup

Sorry, for late reply. This doesn't change anything. After I do that the uefi screen is still frozen. There's an unblinking cursor in top left corner and that's all

kibartas

Member

Registered: 2019-01-29

Posts: 29

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

I am ABLE to boot into arch through windows. I just can't get into the bios/efi screen at laptop's startup.

Turn off fast boot in Windows. Some motherboards don't let you to go to your EFI settings when the system is woken up from hibernation, and when Windows boots using fast boot, it actually kinda hibernates the kernel. When doing a restart however, you should be able to get to the EFI settings (as well as if you turn off fast boot).

I have already done that as noted in Dual boot with Windows arch linux wiki page

GFdevelop

Member

Registered: 2017-09-18

Posts: 27

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

Sorry, for late reply. This doesn't change anything. After I do that the uefi screen is still frozen. There's an unblinking cursor in top left corner and that's all

I don't known...your uefi hardware/firmware can be corrupted, I suggest you to search for firmware update on the vendor's website or to reinstall the current version, but do this at your risk!

kibartas

Member

Registered: 2019-01-29

Posts: 29

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

Sorry, for late reply. This doesn't change anything. After I do that the uefi screen is still frozen. There's an unblinking cursor in top left corner and that's all

I don't known...your uefi hardware/firmware can be corrupted, I suggest you to search for firmware update on the vendor's website or to reinstall the current version, but do this at your risk!

The thing is. I think that my motherboard resets after several attempts to get into it. If I power off and then try to go into UEFI screen several times my laptop doesn't turn on for several minutes. After that it's possible to get into the UEFI again but most (all? Password isn't reset) options are reset, like safe boot.

efexos

Member

Registered: 2019-08-30

Posts: 8

Re: Can't boot into arch after installing grub

It seems you have windows problem, so if you press power windows boot manager starts up right, So to change it back to grub boot -- get yourself  windows terminal (AKA cmd) and do "bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path pathtoefigrubfolderboot\grubx64.efi" restart the pc you should see grub. This may break your windows bootloader be safe than sorry get your live Windows USB nearby. Incase all goes to shit plug the windows usb get yourself cmd there and do "bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi" this should get things back to windows bootmanager.