[SOLVED] GRUB Refuses To Appear

Jukelyn · 2025-11-29 22:18:18

I was dual booting Windows and Arch but I found myself wanting for storage for Arch so I did booted into Windows and use Disk Manager (Management?) to shrink windows partition. I tried to right click and see if I could expand the Linux root partition but there was no option, so I moved the allocated space between the root and boot partitions and it still didn't let me. At this point I planned to boot to Arch and use GParted to expand the partition but I couldn't get to the GRUB menu, it just drops me right into Windows. I made an Ubuntu installer, booted from it and used GParted to increase the space of my Arch root partition. I still can't get to the GRUB menu though. I have tried the following:

- Booted from an Arch live USB
- Did sudo fdisk -l and I see that my partitions have changed their numbers and my boot is at /dev/nvme0n1p5 and my root is at /dev/nvme0n1p7
- I kept this in mind and followed https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB#Installation to hopefully repair GRUB.

mount /dev/nvme0n1p7 /mnt
mount /dev/nvme0n1p5 /mnt/boot
arch-chroot /mnt
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/EFI --bootloader-id=GRUB

When I do ls boot/ I see

EFI grub initramfs-linux-lts.img initramfs-linux.img intel-ucode.img vmlinuz-linux vmlinux-linux-lts

But when I do ls boot/EFI I see

BOOT EFI GRUB

I'm willing to bet that i'm installing it in the wrong place? Should I be doing grub-install with --efi-directory=/boot instead? Also I remember at one point of me trying to get GRUB to work it showed up in my UEFI boot order but didn't boot to it and then it disappeared. I do see GRUB in efibootmgr and I have tried changing the order using that as well. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks in advanced.

I'm also new to writing forum posts so I apologize for poor formatting. I tried to put as much info as possible that seemed relevant.

Edit: Marked post as solved.

Last edited by Jukelyn (Yesterday 15:53:38)

Scimmia · 2025-11-29 22:39:14

If you mounted your ESP to /boot, why are you telling grub it's at /boot/EFI?

Jukelyn · 2025-11-29 23:22:20

Scimmia wrote:

If you mounted your ESP to /boot, why are you telling grub it's at /boot/EFI?

You make a good point... I'm honestly not sure. I just saw the EFI directory and thought that was right but I have just tried it with /boot instead and I'm still unable to get to the GRUB menu...

Before I rebooted, I did see GRUB be placed as the first in the boot order (via efibootmgr) but when I rebooted into my UEFI settings, it just doesn't exist. I also am unable to see the menu show up when I reboot and not go into UEFI.

Edit: Clarified where I saw the boot order before the reboot.

Last edited by Jukelyn (2025-11-29 23:23:34)

Scimmia · 2025-11-30 02:21:50

Sounds like you're dealing with crappy firmware. See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB#D … _boot_path

HasakeShinonome · 2025-11-30 23:04:50

Jukelyn wrote:

mount /dev/nvme0n1p7 /mnt
mount /dev/nvme0n1p5 /mnt/boot
arch-chroot /mnt
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/EFI --bootloader-id=GRUB

Have you also executed the GRUB mkconfig command? I keep forgetting to use it, as well. But as also said before, /boot/efi isn't the correct directory, it should be /boot.

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=ARCH
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

system72 · 2025-11-30 23:08:28

Jukelyn wrote:

Before I rebooted, I did see GRUB be placed as the first in the boot order (via efibootmgr) but when I rebooted into my UEFI settings, it just doesn't exist. I also am unable to see the menu show up when I reboot and not go into UEFI.

you can reinstall grub with the removable flag, it will install the grub executable to the fallback path

https://man.archlinux.org/man/grub-inst … #removable

Jukelyn · Yesterday 04:42:13

HasakeShinonome wrote:

Jukelyn wrote:
mount /dev/nvme0n1p7 /mnt
mount /dev/nvme0n1p5 /mnt/boot
arch-chroot /mnt
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/EFI --bootloader-id=GRUB
Have you also executed the GRUB mkconfig command? I keep forgetting to use it, as well. But as also said before, /boot/efi isn't the correct directory, it should be /boot.
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=ARCH
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

I forgot to mention that but yes, I have been doing that as well. I did notice though that the bootloader-id here is ARCH versus "GRUB" which I find in the wikis, is that significant? I did not use the command with a different id yet but should I change it to ARCH?

Edit: Added questions about bootloader-id

Last edited by Jukelyn (Yesterday 05:03:52)

Jukelyn · Yesterday 05:00:57

system72 wrote:

Jukelyn wrote:
Before I rebooted, I did see GRUB be placed as the first in the boot order (via efibootmgr) but when I rebooted into my UEFI settings, it just doesn't exist. I also am unable to see the menu show up when I reboot and not go into UEFI.
you can reinstall grub with the removable flag, it will install the grub executable to the fallback path
https://man.archlinux.org/man/grub-inst … #removable

So I just tried this just now and I'm getting the same behavior. Additionally, I tried the option that Scimmia recommended but that also does not seem to work. These are the exact commands I used for both routes:

mount /dev/nvme0np7 /mnt
mount /dev/nvme0np5 /mnt/boot
arch-chroot /mnt
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB --removable
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
efibootmgr
exit
reboot

efibootmgr showed GRUB as the first in the order but it skipped that and went into Windows again. The second route was the same exact commands except I removed the bootloader-id since it wasn't in the Wiki snippet. For this route though, efibootmgr showed GRUB but not in the right order. I fixed that with efibootmgr -o and then exited, rebooted, but still get dropped onto Windows.

system72 · Yesterday 12:57:16

--removable doesnt make an entry in nvram it installs the grub executable to the fallback path, look in your entries for your drive itself

Jukelyn · Yesterday 15:07:49

system72 wrote:

--removable doesnt make an entry in nvram it installs the grub executable to the fallback path, look in your entries for your drive itself

What do you mean by this? What would that look like?

Jukelyn · Yesterday 15:52:49

I got it to work. Here's what I did:

mount /dev/nvme0np7 /mnt
mount /dev/nvme0np5 /mnt/boot
arch-chroot /mnt
rm -rf /boot/grub
rm -rf /boot/EFI
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
exit
reboot

I guess me not removing the other grub files before trying to reinstall it was being odd? I'm honestly unsure but it works now. My themes that I made did disappear and aren't working but I'll figure that out separately. Thanks to everybody who replied for the help!

Last edited by Jukelyn (Yesterday 15:59:03)

Arch Linux

#1 2025-11-29 22:18:18

[SOLVED] GRUB Refuses To Appear

#2 2025-11-29 22:39:14

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Refuses To Appear

#3 2025-11-29 23:22:20

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Refuses To Appear

#4 2025-11-30 02:21:50

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Refuses To Appear

#5 2025-11-30 23:04:50

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Refuses To Appear

#6 2025-11-30 23:08:28

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Refuses To Appear

#7 Yesterday 04:42:13

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Refuses To Appear

#8 Yesterday 05:00:57

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Refuses To Appear

#9 Yesterday 12:57:16

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Refuses To Appear

#10 Yesterday 15:07:49

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Refuses To Appear

#11 Yesterday 15:52:49

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Refuses To Appear

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