Arch Linux

light9876

Member

Registered: 2020-01-05

Posts: 142

[SOLVED] Can't boot arch from SSD after it is disconnected

So I installed arch and everything okay on my new SSD. I do restarts, I turn off machine and start it up again all okay.

But:

1. I disconnect SATA from SSD, and connect HDD with Arch installed.
2. HDD boots okay. I disconnect HDD and connect SSD again.
3. Arch now can't boot. In the UEFI boot option priorities, only the SSD name is listed, but if I select it it doesn't do anything.
4. Reconnect HDD, and it can boot.

Anyone has an idea please?

Last edited by light9876 (2020-01-11 13:45:47)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,403

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot arch from SSD after it is disconnected

Is your ESP on the hard disk? UEFI works by having UEFI binaries on an ESP, if you have installed "Arch" as in the file system on the SSD it won't really matter if the ESP to boot the initramfs from is on the HDD. Why can't you not have both connected?

light9876

Member

Registered: 2020-01-05

Posts: 142

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot arch from SSD after it is disconnected

I managed to boot again after doing:

1. Booting from arch installation iso usb
2. mount root drive to /mnt:

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt

3. mount efi partition (I already did these steps when I first installed arch):

 mkdir -p /mnt/boot/efi
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi

4.

arch-root /mnt

5.

grub-install /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

efibootmgr -v

BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0001,0003,0004,0005,0006
Boot0000* arch	HD(1,GPT,0d48d6fd-8e34-4b55-94ee-ac129c778c3e,0x800,0x1e8480)/File(\EFI\arch\grubx64.efi)
Boot0001* Hard Drive	BBS(HD,,0x0)..GO..NO........o.S.a.m.s.u.n.g. .S.S.D. .8.6.0. .Q.V.O. .1.T.B....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.4.S.Z.C.F.N.M.0.9.A.5.5.9.9. .L. . . . ........BO
Boot0003  UEFI: IP4 Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1d,0x1)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/MAC(38d547af3c0c,0)/IPv4(0.0.0.00.0.0.0,0,0)..BO
Boot0004  UEFI: IP6 Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1d,0x1)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/MAC(38d547af3c0c,0)/IPv6([::]:<->[::]:,0,0)..BO
Boot0005  UEFI: IP4 Intel(R) Ethernet Connection (2) I219-V	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1f,0x6)/MAC(38d547af3c0b,0)/IPv4(0.0.0.00.0.0.0,0,0)..BO
Boot0006  UEFI: IP6 Intel(R) Ethernet Connection (2) I219-V	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1f,0x6)/MAC(38d547af3c0b,0)/IPv6([::]:<->[::]:,0,0)..BO

Note that the Boot0000* arch entry was not there.

I assument that if I disconnect my SSD, it will disappear. But why?

light9876

Member

Registered: 2020-01-05

Posts: 142

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot arch from SSD after it is disconnected

Is your ESP on the hard disk? UEFI works by having UEFI binaries on an ESP, if you have installed "Arch" as in the file system on the SSD it won't really matter if the ESP to boot the initramfs from is on the HDD. Why can't you not have both connected?

The ESP is stored on the first partition of the SSD.

My installation steps are here:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=252051

Connecting both is a solution, but I want to whether it is happening because of something I failed to do..

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,403

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot arch from SSD after it is disconnected

Your grub install command is technically incorrect for setting up an EFI boot [1] . It will disappear because most EFI implementations are shit and will forget their entries. It still isn't entirely clear to me whether you are sure if that entry points to the HDD or the SDD and where you actually want it pointed to. If you want to be independent from whether your disk is plugged in or not, install GRUB with the --removable flag added to the UEFI installation command, that will set up an entry that should always work

[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … allation_2

light9876

Member

Registered: 2020-01-05

Posts: 142

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot arch from SSD after it is disconnected

Thank you. Using this line solves the problem:

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