Arch Linux

mzitf

Member

Registered: 2020-08-19

Posts: 6

Grub issues with windows dual boot

Hello!

I have installed arch with a windows 10 dual boot a few times. I recently bought a new dell xps laptop and I am trying to dual boot arch with windows again. I went through the install according to the wiki up to the boot loader. Installed grub, configured it for linux and windows 10, grub says it found windows bootloader and linux, great exit chroot, unmount all, reboot.

When I boot arch I get an error that the device cannot be found, dropping to emergency shell.

Windows boots fine.

I did all the suggested windows setups, but the laptop came with bitlocker which I disabled and decrypted the drive. Disabled secure boot, etc. there are a lot of bios settings I am unfamilair with on this laptop, maybe that is the issue?

I looked at other similar support threads and nothing really pops out to me. My grub config looks unremarkable, my partition table seems correct. Happy to post any logs.

Help is very welcome!!!

Thanks,

Matt

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 9,003

Website

Re: Grub issues with windows dual boot

Can we please see the content of /boot/grub/grub.cfg and the output of

# efibootmgr -v
# parted --list
# blkid

The commands can be run from any live system. See the pastebin client section of the Applications page on the ArchWiki for a method of sharing the output if you don't have an ISO with a graphical desktop.

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

mzitf

Member

Registered: 2020-08-19

Posts: 6

Re: Grub issues with windows dual boot

Hey thanks!

I booted to my iso from the usb and piped the commands right from root@archiso, hope that's corrected!

efibootmgr -v:  http://ix.io/2NMM

parted --list:     http://ix.io/2NMP

blkid:                http://ix.io/2NMR

Thanks again!

mzitf

Member

Registered: 2020-08-19

Posts: 6

Re: Grub issues with windows dual boot

oops forgot the grub bit just a sec

mzitf

Member

Registered: 2020-08-19

Posts: 6

Re: Grub issues with windows dual boot

ok, I am not sure what is going on but it looks like I am generating the grub config and installing it but it is not persisting in my linux partition. 

I mount my efi partition, I mount my linux partition, chroot in to my linux partition and then run the following grub command to install

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=esp --bootloader-id=GRUB

I then mount my windows partition and run grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

It says it finds linux and windows then I exit chroot, unmount, and reboot.

When I go back in to my medium I can't find boot/grub/grub.cfg which I assume is my issue but... ????? Really not sure how to resolve this

When my computer shuts down after setting up grub I do notice that one of the statuses is listed as failed relating to boot, it flashes by very quickly

again, grub is successfully installed windows works, linux does not.

Last edited by mzitf (2021-01-30 23:17:01)

nd925a

Member

Registered: 2017-01-30

Posts: 44

Re: Grub issues with windows dual boot

Silly question, was your efi partition mounted to /mnt/boot when you did genfstab and pacstrap?
Are you getting a grub emergency shell or a linux kernel emergency shell?

mzitf

Member

Registered: 2020-08-19

Posts: 6

Re: Grub issues with windows dual boot

Very much not a silly question. Barring a blunder, no I mounted before pacstrap.

It also looks like there is a setting in my bios for sata mode that I missed. Set to raid but i guess should be ahci.

Not really sure what is going on but looking around people claim grub is unfreidly for dell xps, if anyone has strong thoughts on switching bootloaders i am all ears.

It’s the linux emergency shell, which I guess is a good point because grub did in fact load something

Last edited by mzitf (2021-01-31 01:45:03)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,351

Re: Grub issues with windows dual boot

Switch that to AHCI to fix this or if you want to make sure Windows is unaffected add vmd to the MODULES=() array in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and regenerate the kernel images with mkinitcpio -P from a chroot instead.

Any GRUB claims are unfounded and can likely be ignored.

Last edited by V1del (2021-01-31 01:57:10)

mzitf

Member

Registered: 2020-08-19

Posts: 6

Re: Grub issues with windows dual boot

Hello,

AHCI setting in BIOS appears to totally resolve my error. I am going to mark this as solved.