Arch Linux

retr00h

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2021-07-03

Posts: 2

Couldn't boot after installing

After reading throughout the wiki for the past days (and making my own cheatsheet of the steps I needed to make in order to install Arch successfully), I finally tried installing it on my computer, but I didn't succeed.
I made sure I was booting in UEFI mode (I switched the "boot mode" option from "legacy + UEFI" to "UEFI" in my motherboard's settings, the motherboard is a MSI H370 gaming plus, bought in 2018).

(I won't mention some of the steps I made as they're listed in the wiki anyways. Will happily do so if requested though)
I used cfdisk to partition the disk where I wanted Arch to be installed, chose GPT for the partition table and made my partitions (a 512MB EFI partition, a 4GB swap partition and used the remaining space as a Linux root partition).

Then (again, after performing steps explained in the wiki, such as installing essential packages, generating the fstab, ...), the bootloader installation moment finally arrived, and I chose to install GRUB.
I'm sure I did this even the first time I tried installing Arch, but I made sure I did it on the 2nd install (which still didn't work): I ran the grub-install and the grub-mkconfig commands.

Then I followed the final steps as said in the wiki (set a root password, exit the chrooted environment, unmount and reboot), expecting that the installed system would run, but it didn't: all I could see after rebooting was the BIOS screen.

What am I doing wrong?

twelveeighty

Member

From: Alberta, Canada

Registered: 2011-09-04

Posts: 1,096

Re: Couldn't boot after installing

Describe last thing (the BIOS screen?) you are seeing - is there an error shown? Are there any options presented? If needed, post a link to a screen cap taken with a phone - don't post images inline in the forums.

Piri

Member

Registered: 2018-06-02

Posts: 70

Re: Couldn't boot after installing

I ran the grub-install and the grub-mkconfig commands.

Which exact commands did you use to install GRUB?
Be aware that you have to use the grub-install command from the UEFI systems section. Make sure you got efibootmgr installed.

(EDIT: make sure you got efibootmgr installed)

Last edited by Piri (2021-07-03 15:11:23)

retr00h

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2021-07-03

Posts: 2

Re: Couldn't boot after installing

Describe last thing (the BIOS screen?) you are seeing - is there an error shown? Are there any options presented? If needed, post a link to a screen cap taken with a phone - don't post images inline in the forums.

I'm not seeing any error, it just shows the usual logo while booting but then I get to the BIOS: https://imgur.com/a/4lHQ683

I ran the grub-install and the grub-mkconfig commands.

Which exact commands did you use to install GRUB?
Be aware that you have to use the grub-install command from the UEFI systems section. Make sure you got efibootmgr installed.

(EDIT: make sure you got efibootmgr installed)

I'm installing the grub and efibootmgr packages with the pacstrap command shown in the "install essential packages" paragraph in the wiki (pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware ... grub efibootmgr, "..." are other packages), and when I got to the "bootloader" phase I ran:

grub-install --target=x86_64efi --efi-directory=/efi --bootloader-id=GRUB
(which should install grub in the specified efi-directory, so /efi), and

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
(which should generate GRUB's configuration file and save it in /boot/grub/grub.cfg)

I forgot to mention in my first post that this installation could successfully boot on a virtual machine

ben781

Member

Registered: 2016-12-11

Posts: 18

Re: Couldn't boot after installing

Did you set Arch’s GRUB as the default boot option in your BIOS settings?

Piri

Member

Registered: 2018-06-02

Posts: 70

Re: Couldn't boot after installing

What's the output of these commands from the chroot (set the chroot up just like in the installation)

# lsblk -o NAME,MOUNTPOINTS,PARTUUID
# efibootmgr -v

If GRUB shouldn't show up in the bootlist then I would try to reinstall GRUB with the removable flag:

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