Arch Linux

piperfw

Member

Registered: 2021-01-08

Posts: 30

No Bootable Device after system crash [SOLVED]

Hi, I am looking for some advice on troubleshooting or repair steps after a recent system crash.

Today after an unexpected crash the system rebooted to bios (instead of GRUB) and no boot devices were listed. The system is UEFI with GRUB2 installed under /boot, the mount point of an ESP partition /dev/nvme0n1p1 (FAT32).

Booted from a live USB was fine (i.e. BIOS detected it as a bootable drive). Mounting the ESP partition I can see /boot/EFI/GRUB/grubx64.efi and GRUB files under /mnt/boot/grub as I would expect. However efibootmgr -v does not register this boot partition.

Does anyone have any advice on how to proceed? My thoughts are regenerating GRUB config, reinstalling grub and/or regenerating initramfs may be required.

The system is 6.5.5.arch1-1 and the last system update two days ago did not report any errors. For reference I attach the output os lsblk -f  (nvme0n1 is the main boot device).  Do let me know if other information may be helpful.

NAME        FSTYPE   FSVER            LABEL       UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
loop0       squashfs 4.0                                                                     0   100% /run/archiso/airootfs
sda         iso9660  Joliet Extension ARCH_202209 2022-09-03-05-06-12-00                              
├─sda1      iso9660  Joliet Extension ARCH_202209 2022-09-03-05-06-12-00                     0   100% /run/archiso/bootmnt
└─sda2      vfat     FAT16            ARCHISO_EFI 11C8-A028                                           
sdb                                                                                                   
└─sdb1      ext4     1.0                          c9e70a78-f5a0-47c4-bdcd-dbc0f56230a9   13.1G     2% /mnt2
nvme1n1                                                                                               
├─nvme1n1p1                                                                                           
└─nvme1n1p2 ntfs                                  362CA6462CA6014B                                    
nvme0n1                                                                                               
├─nvme0n1p1 vfat     FAT32                        551D-4A66                             889.6M    13% /mnt/boot
│                                                                                                     /mnt
├─nvme0n1p2 swap     1                            a71b6678-3f34-46c0-964c-dfacb53f357f                
├─nvme0n1p3 btrfs                     archroot    fe23bb23-4b77-42ef-88ae-38ebe66cec86  163.2G    18% /mnt
└─nvme0n1p4 btrfs                     archhome    04da4b4d-b346-45a8-9efe-18bb8d0e90f2  639.9G    11% /mnt/home
nvme2n1                                                                                               
└─nvme2n1p1 btrfs                     archdata    a57d76c3-c978-42fd-8d86-62403422d20e           

Last edited by piperfw (2023-10-03 06:04:46)

piperfw

Member

Registered: 2021-01-08

Posts: 30

Re: No Bootable Device after system crash [SOLVED]

An update with a few more things I have checked:
- the physical drive nvme0n1 is detected by BIOS (UEFI), just not listed as a bootable drive
- secure boot is off and the BIOS is in UEFI not legacy mode (as has always been)
- I tried turning off the 'fast boot' option but this did not change the outcome

The moterboard is ASUS B650-PLUS Wifi. I am going to put in a ticket with ASUS support to see if they have suggestions. Other things I might look to try: testing the drive with SMART, installing an OS on a spare harddrive and connecting that to the system (but presumably that would work, since I could boot from the USB device). Other suggestions welcome.

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,093

Re: No Bootable Device after system crash [SOLVED]

reinstalling grub and/or regenerating initramfs may be required

But I'd start w/ an fsck on nvme0n1p1 and, though I doubt that happened, "fdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1" to see whether its still typed "EFI System"
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/EFI_system_partition

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

piperfw

Member

Registered: 2021-01-08

Posts: 30

Re: No Bootable Device after system crash [SOLVED]

Thanks seth, I can confirm that the partition is still listed as EFI correctly on the GPT table as I originally setup during installation:

fdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1
---------------------
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 931.51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Disk model: WD_BLACK SN850X 1000GB                  
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 83E393C3-26CD-E649-8B8A-3883F7DDB226

Device             Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1      2048    2099199    2097152     1G EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2   2099200   18876415   16777216     8G Linux swap
/dev/nvme0n1p3  18876416  438306815  419430400   200G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p4 438306816 1953523711 1515216896 722.5G Linux filesystem

piperfw

Member

Registered: 2021-01-08

Posts: 30

Re: No Bootable Device after system crash [SOLVED]

Reinstalling GRUB and regenerating grub.cfg fixed the issue. I did not have to regenerate initramfs.

I'm not sure how the system crash damaged the bootloader.

Commands for reference (after mounting the ESP partition to /mnt/boot and arch-chroot /mnt):

# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
# efibootmgr -v # GRUB now recognised

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,093

Re: No Bootable Device after system crash [SOLVED]

I'm not sure how the system crash damaged the bootloader.

Filesystem corruption.

You can somewhat protect the boot partition/ESP itr by only mounting it on demand and unmounting it asap to get the FS synced and inert.
But if the automount-on-demand fails or is too eager or you forget to manually mount it on need, the next (kernel) update will break your boot for sure.
And it doesn't help when the system crashes at the wrong moment either

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

piperfw

Member

Registered: 2021-01-08

Posts: 30

Re: No Bootable Device after system crash [SOLVED]

You can somewhat protect the boot partition/ESP itr by only mounting it on demand and unmounting it asap to get the FS synced and inert.

Interesting, given this has only happened once in 6-7 years of using arch/GRUB I will leave it for now. That being said, events are rarely independent - so the crash may well occur again next week (:

piperfw

Member

Registered: 2021-01-08

Posts: 30

Re: No Bootable Device after system crash [SOLVED]

And here is a humorous follow-up courtesy of ASUS Support [off-topic]:

Kindly be advised that the software for this motherboard and all the documentation was intended for Windows usage only.
We do not have any troubleshooting steps or advices for Linux OS. If you can format the drive and run Windows OS from the same drive, this indicates that there is no issue with the motherboard itself.

Thank you.