[SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

jonesan · 2022-11-18 20:43:02

Hello,

Today while installing Arch the following problem occurred: I was unable to see arch in the boot options. I tried several times and I even tried using archinstall. Nothing helped. I am using a Kingston a400 ssd with 256gb of space and Axagon slimport 6 to connect the ssd to my laptop using usb. I want to use this ssd on other computers with the same installation and configuration.

As other post suggest I tried using the --removable flag during the grub-install step. This also didn't help. I get no errors while running this command and while making the default configuration file.

I dual boot with Linux Mint and grub on it had no issues detecting Arch.

Grub config generated with --removable flag
/etc/default/grub

When I used separate partition on my main drive everything worked fine. Using this exernal drive breaks something.

Currently it is late here where I live and I am too tired to do another normal installation. Tomorrow as soon as I wake up I will do it and send you the configs from there.

Thanks in advance!

Last edited by jonesan (2022-11-21 16:18:44)

cfr · 2022-11-18 21:23:07

When you say it is not in the boot options, do you mean it is not in the options presented by Linux Mint's boot loader? Or do you mean it is not in the list when you pull up the UEFI firmware list (bypassing LM's boot loader)? There is no reason to expect it to be in the first since you've not configured Linux Mint's boot loader to use it. Moreover, you probably don't want to configure it there as it will be liable to disappear. You presumably want to boot Arch the same way you booted the Arch live USB?

jonesan · 2022-11-18 21:31:44

Excuse me for my bad explanation. I have configured LM's bootloader to use it. When I pull up UEFI list only Linux mint shows up. No arch

Scimmia · 2022-11-18 21:38:11

How did you install grub, exactly? What command?

jonesan · 2022-11-19 09:08:28

For the installation I used

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

And for the config generation I used

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

To note: I have updated the pasebins in the main post with the ones that are not from archinstall

cfr · 2022-11-19 16:36:20

Are you issuing those commands when in Linux Mint? Or are you issuing them after arch-chrooting into your Arch system from the live ISO?

lsblk -f

Scimmia · 2022-11-19 16:40:28

You should have a file at <esp>/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI, correct?

jonesan · 2022-11-19 17:13:35

Those two command I run from the arch-chroot environment. The output of lsblk -f is

NAME        FSTYPE FSVER LABEL            UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                                           
└─sda1      ext4   1.0   Seagate Extensio 5c7ae980-99ee-4a33-b78a-b3029161497d                
sdb                                                                                           
├─sdb1      vfat   FAT32                  36BA-0702                             442.8M    13% /boot
├─sdb2      swap   1                      2f08227a-6a8d-452e-b081-17a4379bc8e5                [SWAP]
└─sdb3      btrfs                         eade2958-7dc2-405e-9396-d06cc798e7a5  209.9G     2% /
nvme0n1                                                                                       
├─nvme0n1p1 vfat   FAT32                  4518-C3E1                                           
├─nvme0n1p2 swap   1                      bcebe213-b9a7-4fef-87a4-7caea1cd8d5f                
└─nvme0n1p4 ext4   1.0                    6fb46735-7b4e-4db2-ab14-659d8dc6b4e6

sda is the drive where I store some files and documents.
sdb is the drive where arch is installed.
nvme0n1 is the drive where LM is installed.

I do have the file <esp>/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI

cfr · 2022-11-19 19:15:57

So you should be able to select the disk when you boot by bringing up your firmware's boot options (rather than waiting for LM's boot loader to give you options).

jonesan · 2022-11-19 19:40:14

Yes, I should but I am not

cfr · 2022-11-20 00:29:27

Did that work when you installed Arch i.e. with the live ISO?

d.ALT · 2022-11-20 07:35:31

Is os-prober installed in Mint? GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false is set like this in Mint? Do you mount Arch's partitions when using Mint to probe 'em?

jonesan · 2022-11-20 08:08:37

I installed arch trough the live iso, but I was also using ventoy.

Yes, os-prober is installed in Mint and GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER is set to false. In mint when I connect some USB storage it is automatically mounted. In my case only the /root partition is mounted and /boot is not mounted

cfr · 2022-11-20 18:26:31

You need /boot mounted.

jonesan · 2022-11-20 18:31:31

I know that. As I said earlier: I can boot arch using Linux Mint's bootloader. The problem is when I want to choose which OS to boot in the BIOS I don't have the option to do that.

V1del · 2022-11-21 15:53:15

The --removable flag does not add NVRAM entries, if you rerun the grub-install command without --removable you will generate an entry (make sure the id is unique among them), however if the drive is in general expected to be "removable" then you are not going to get around this limitation, what your UEFI would show instead is a boot entry for the disk/device name.

Last edited by V1del (2022-11-21 16:06:10)

jonesan · 2022-11-21 16:18:11

Thanks, this worked. Not sure why it didn't work the previous times

Arch Linux

#1 2022-11-18 20:43:02

[SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#2 2022-11-18 21:23:07

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#3 2022-11-18 21:31:44

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#4 2022-11-18 21:38:11

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#5 2022-11-19 09:08:28

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#6 2022-11-19 16:36:20

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#7 2022-11-19 16:40:28

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#8 2022-11-19 17:13:35

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#9 2022-11-19 19:15:57

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#10 2022-11-19 19:40:14

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#11 2022-11-20 00:29:27

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#12 2022-11-20 07:35:31

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#13 2022-11-20 08:08:37

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#14 2022-11-20 18:26:31

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#15 2022-11-20 18:31:31

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#16 2022-11-21 15:53:15

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

#17 2022-11-21 16:18:11

Re: [SOLVED]Arch on external drive not showing in boot options

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