Arch Linux

scippie

Member

Registered: 2019-06-07

Posts: 148

[SOLVED] Computer doesn't detect USB I installed with Arch

I've installed Arch a lot of times in the past, I've used Linux for years.
On my new computer, I first want to experiment with an USB installation of Arch first before installing it on the internal disk, albeit to see if the hardware will work smooth and be able to make some mistakes before doing it clean.

I can boot up the Arch installation USB just fine.
At the prompt, I can find my other USB where I want to install the system with lsblk.
I fdisk the target USB on DOS/MBR format, create an UEFI partition and a Linux partition.
For compatibility with BIOS, I mark the Linux partition as boot partition.
I format both of them respectively to FAT32 and EXT4 and I start installing with the Wiki Installation Guide on my tablet.
I install GRUB for both BIOS and EFI boot on the correct places (I've tried EFI alone too).
I reboot and... the USB is not detected by my system as something bootable to consider.

I checked, double checked, tried GPT instead of MBR, changed the order of partitions, ... nothing seems to work.
I've looked at the partition table of the Arch installation USB, it has an almost identical partition table (although it seems to have a zero-signature on the Linux partition?).
But my system won't see it and starts booting Windows while it boots the Arch installation USB with ease when I press F12 at boot.

Am I forgetting something??

Thanks for any insights!

Note: I have seen the https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Instal … ble_medium page. I didn't find anything that helped me (or I missed it).
Edit: I just tried it with a different USB stick, one that is of the exact same type as the USB I boot Arch Installation with. Didn't help.
Edit: I notice one big difference: my EFI partition is mounted as a disk in Windows while the one on the Arch Installation USB isn't. There seems to be a difference, but what is it?

Last edited by scippie (2022-10-31 09:31:10)

Strike0

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2011-09-05

Posts: 1,489

Re: [SOLVED] Computer doesn't detect USB I installed with Arch

For compatibility with BIOS, I mark the Linux partition as boot partition.
I format both of them respectively to FAT32 and EXT4 and I start installing with the Wiki Installation Guide on my tablet.
I install GRUB for both BIOS and EFI boot on the correct places (I've tried EFI alone too).
I reboot and... the USB is not detected by my system as something bootable to consider.

I guess you created the efi partition first, because it has to be.
I'm right now not sure why you mark the linux partition as bootable.
What sort of BIOS is it - can it be a 32-bit problem?

There is also: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Multib … T/MBR_boot
Maybe worth a try.

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,447

Re: [SOLVED] Computer doesn't detect USB I installed with Arch

To boot EFI from USB, you should be using grub's --removable flag. Many firmware's will delete nvram entries as soon as they're not available.

scippie

Member

Registered: 2019-06-07

Posts: 148

Re: [SOLVED] Computer doesn't detect USB I installed with Arch

I finally found out what it was. It seems I need to specify the --boot-directory parameter as well. For me it's not clear from the wiki pages that this is necessary.
The place where I found it also said that the --boot-directory should be with the mount point but that brought me to the Grub rescue prompt.

So it became:

# grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck --boot-directory=/boot /dev/sdX
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --recheck --removable --boot-directory=/boot --efi-directory=/boot

It boots now! Thanks for the help!