Arch Linux

sidambhire

Member

Registered: 2013-10-15

Posts: 19

NVMe detected in BIOS but GRUB boot entry is missing after Arch instal

I installed Arch Linux on an NVMe SSD in an MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Edge WiFi system. The BIOS detects the NVMe drive and displays its correct manufacturer and model, but it does not appear in the UEFI boot-device list, so the system boots directly into BIOS.

The disk has a FAT32 EFI System Partition and a separate F2FS /boot partition (also tried ext4). I initially set the boot flags on both partitions. I installed GRUB, and efibootmgr -v showed a GRUB entry at one point, but the entry was not available after reboot. I also tried moving the SSD to another M.2 slot and updated the motherboard BIOS, without resolving the issue.

The system is booted in UEFI mode, and I have since confirmed that the motherboard and NVMe can boot successfully by installing Manjaro Linux; its UEFI boot entry persists across reboots. This suggests the problem is likely due to my Arch installation procedure, mount configuration, or GRUB installation rather than faulty hardware.

I plan to reinstall Arch and would appreciate advice on the correct procedure when using a separate FAT32 EFI partition and F2FS /boot partition.

Last edited by sidambhire (2026-08-21 11:29:20)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,334

Re: NVMe detected in BIOS but GRUB boot entry is missing after Arch instal

MSI are notorious for not properly implementing UEFI boot entries and usually just boot the fallback UEFI path esp/EFI/BOOT/BOOTx64.efi which can be populated by running the grub-install command with the --removable flag appended.

So, assuming the ESP VFAT is mounted under /efi or so you'd run

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

Last edited by V1del (2026-08-21 13:39:49)

sidambhire

Member

Registered: 2013-10-15

Posts: 19

Re: NVMe detected in BIOS but GRUB boot entry is missing after Arch instal

Yup. That worked. Thanks!

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,334

Re: NVMe detected in BIOS but GRUB boot entry is missing after Arch instal

Glad to hear, please mark as [SOLVED] by editing the title in your first post. Might have to shorten it a bit to make it fit

Last edited by V1del (Yesterday 14:52:30)