Arch Linux

auscyber

Member

Registered: 2021-11-17

Posts: 2

GRUB doesn't launch

Hi,
I've been running arch for quite a while now but suddenly it just broke. I'm running zen kernel 5.15 and dkms modules for nvidia and openrazer, normally i use refind with secure boot, but i need to obviously have a running system to fix that.
But suddenly out of nowhere, i restarted my computer, and BOOM, no more refind boot entry. I booted into windows, copied the arch iso with efi and chrooted back into my arch install to refind-install and grub-install it back onto my efi partition. In both cases, efibootmgr would show that it was successfully added, but i restart and it was gone. I disabled secure boot, didnt work either, i updated my bios, nothing. I tried again and installed grub with

grub-install --removable --efi-directory=/efi

; Now that appears in my boot menu, but then it doesnt launch, it defaults straight back to the boot menu. I copied the grub binary from the arch iso onto my efi partition, same problem. I dont have msi fast boot or anything like that running either. I think i've tried almost everything to make it work except for reinstalling arch, but i doubt it would work as grub just doesnt start at all, or launch back to the efi shell at all.

Edit: lucky im not entirely a noobie, and i knew to try all these things, I can't imagine what these problems would be like for complete newbie

Last edited by auscyber (2021-11-17 00:47:33)

Mr Victory

Member

Registered: 2021-06-10

Posts: 41

Re: GRUB doesn't launch

Installing GRUB with --removable and adding it to the top of firmware menu may help.
1. Make sure that secure boot is disabled and you know how to access firmware interface without using a boot loader or operating system.
2. Boot from the archiso
3. Mount your Arch installation to /mnt, EFI system partition to /mnt/efi and boot partition (if you have) to /mnt/boot.
4. arch-chroot to /mnt
5. Install GRUB with

grub-install --removable --efi-directory=/efi --boot-directory=/boot

6. Add a firmware entry for GRUB

efibootmgr --disk /path/to/disk --part <number of EFI partition> --loader /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi --label "grub"

7. Check that you successfully created an entry and it is on top of the list with

efibootmgr -v