You are not logged in.

#1 2025-10-14 22:30:18

BongoFriendee
Member
Registered: 2025-10-14
Posts: 2

Stuck on a black screen before GRUB

Hello.

I've followed the instructions on https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide to install Arch as a Dual boot to the best of my abilities but I've ended up with a problem after rebooting (removing the installation media first) where the laptop turns on but the screen is black and the keyboard is not active. My Windows boot manager entry still works normally.

Specs:
Lenovo Ideapad 310-15ISK
CPU: Intel i3-6006U
GPU: Intel onboard, Intel Graphics HD 520
Memory: 12GB DDR4
Disk: Kingston SA400S3 500GB (SSD)
Existing Windows: 10

I've verified that the checksums for the .iso file (archlinux-2025.10.01-x86_64.iso) are correct. I've checked that my existing Windows installation is UEFI GPT. The output of cat /sys/firmware/efi/fw_platform_size is 64, so the system was booted in UEFI mode.

I created two partitions (/dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6) on the SSD disk with cfdisk, using the space I got from shrinking the Windows partition (100GB). Since I can't boot into the OS, here is a summary of the output of fdisk -l:
Start
/dev/sda1 -> EFI System -> 100MB
/dev/sda2 -> Microsoft reserved -> 16MB
/dev/sda3 -> Microsoft basic data -> 348.8GB
/dev/sda4 -> Windows revocery environment -> 556MB
/dev/sda5 -> Linux filesystem -> 85GB (created with cfdisk)
/dev/sda6 -> Linux Swap -> 12.7GB (created with cfdisk)

I've formatted the root partition with the btrfs file system using the command mkfs.btrfs /dev/sda5.
I've initialized the swap partition using the command mkswap /dev/sda6.

Then, I mounted the root partition as /mnt and mounted the existing efi partition as /mnt/efi (mount --mkdir /dev/sda1 /mnt/efi) and enabled swap with swapon /dev/sda6

I didn't change the mirrorlist and installed the following packages with pacstrap:
pacstrap -K base linux linux-firmware intel-ucode -sof-firmware networkmanager neovim man-db man-pages texinfo util-linux

I've generated the fstab file using genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab. The resulting file:
# /dev/sda5
UUID=93a5156c-afaa-47f0-b21a-d18246e45797        /        btrfs         rw,relatime,ssd,discard=async,space_cache=v2,subvol=/     0  0

# /dev/sda1
UUID=444A-8AC6     /efi        vfat         rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro     0  2

# /dev/sda6
UUID=87fc247d-4259-4767-a9b4-715ad01fc09c     none        swap         defaults     0  0


I chrooted into Arch, set up the timezone, the locale and the machine's hostname.
At first I did not run mkinitcpio -P since I wasn't using LVM, system encryption or RAID. But since then I did to see if this would fix my problem (it did not)
I also set my root password, although I don't think this is very relevant.

I chose GRUB as the boot loader. I ran the command grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/efi --bootloader-id=GRUB. I didn't use an alternative location for the main GRUB directory, so it is at the default /boot/grub. I didn't set up Secure Boot support, since I disabled Secure Boot (couldn't boot into installation media with it enabled).
I then installed efibootmgr and os-prober using pacman and uncommented the line GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false on /etc/default/grub. I then ran the command grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg and it successfully detected the Windows boot entry

Afterwards I exited the chroot environment and umounted the partitions. Rebooted and was greeted with a black screen (the computer turns on, I can see the backlight on the screen).

I don't know what I might have missed or did incorrectly as well as I don't know if there are any logs I could use to investigate the issue. Can you guys help me?

Offline

#2 Yesterday 12:55:34

V1del
Forum Moderator
Registered: 2012-10-16
Posts: 24,798

Re: Stuck on a black screen before GRUB

Check whether CSM is enabled in your UEFI and try to disable that. You do technically have a GRUB entry in the bootloader selection but selecting it leads to a black screen?

Offline

#3 Today 00:30:04

BongoFriendee
Member
Registered: 2025-10-14
Posts: 2

Re: Stuck on a black screen before GRUB

My BIOS doesn't have an explicit CSM option. The closest to that is "OS Optimized Defaults", which is Enabled. The description of this option is as follows:
"Set the BIOS default setting for pure UEFI mode or legacy support mode
[Enable]
When load default values, will load pure UEFI mode default values. Win8 and later OS support pure UEFI mode
[Disable]
When load default values, will load legacy support mode default values"

Yes, I have a GRUB entry. It shows up both on the BIOS setup menu under the "Boot" tab, as well as in the Boot menu. If I choose manually to boot to GRUB or put it as the top option on the boot order, all I see is a black screen.

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB