Arch Linux

meltbanana

Member

Registered: 2023-04-14

Posts: 2

How to boot after motherboard change?

I sent my laptop to service for battery problems and they replaced the motherboard then sent it back. I took out my NVMe m.2 SSD before sending. Now I put it back but can't boot to it. I choose the SSD in menu, screen goes black for a second and returns back to the devices list. When I boot to Arch iso from usb, I can see the SSD and partitions are all there. Maybe I have to chroot in that device and reconfigure grub? What info was in my old motherboard that I seem to lost now? Thank you in advance.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,471

Website

Re: How to boot after motherboard change?

Assuming this is a uefi system, the efi variables are stored in nvram on the mobo.  You need to reinstall the bootloader to nvram (e.g., the `grub-install...` command).  You may also need to boot the fallback initramfs until you rebuild the default with mkinitcpio.  Additionally some device interface names might change (e.g., network card names).

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,727

Re: How to boot after motherboard change?

NVRAM entries are stored on the motherboard. If you didn't install grub to the fallback loader location (using the --removable parameter), the firmware has no idea where to find the grub binary. You'll have regenerate that NVRAM entry, and the easiest way to do that is to reinstall grub.

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 9,003

Website

Re: How to boot after motherboard change?

You probably just need to rebuild the initramfs so the autodetect hook can add the necessary modules. Load up a live ISO image, mount the system partition(s), (arch-)chroot in and perform the rebuild. Note that /dev needs to be mounted in the chroot environment for the autodetect hook to work properly.

EDIT: and the NVRAM entry. Obviously. Lol. Nevermind...

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2023-04-14 13:30:51)

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Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

meltbanana

Member

Registered: 2023-04-14

Posts: 2

Re: How to boot after motherboard change?

Thank you all so much. I reinstalled grub and managed to boot to my SSD. Solved.