[arch-general] Single Drive Fresh Install (mbr/grub2) Fails to boot (can boot existing from .iso??)

[Rijul Gulati]

A quick suggestion :  Why not try systemd-boot instead of grub? (Since now
arch is installed in UEFI) No harm trying ;)

On Mon 7 Nov, 2016, 23:05 David C. Rankin, <drankinatty at suddenlinkmail.com>
wrote:

> On 11/05/2016 04:38 AM, Simon Brulhart wrote:
> > I may be missing something, but is there a chance that the bios just
> > doesn't wait long enough for the disk to turn on?
> > On some laptops this sometimes happen to me when trying to boot an USB
> > harddisk. The disk isn't detected at all by the bios, but generally
> > rebooting with the disk already turned on fixes the issue.
> > I've also seen an option on some BIOSes to wait for a few additional
> > seconds at boot before enumerating drives, indicating that this may be a
> > common issue.
> >
> > Simon
>
> Simon,
>
>   Thanks, but no, I eliminated that by choosing the boot options menu
> (e.g. F9) on boot which allowed 30 seconds or so as I pondered the
> options for the drives to spin up, no it is something quirky with this
> laptop that I have to figure out, but I'm totally stuck.
>
>   I prepared a fresh summary of my ordeal in hopes of getting some
> wisdom to help with this mystery. Here is the summary to date:
>
>   I need a miracle (or just some good help) to find out why I can boot
> from the .iso and "Choose existing OS" just fine, but cannot get this
> laptop to find and boot grub otherwise. (UEFI is *completely* disabled
> in the BIOS and it boots win10 in Legacy mode fine) I have now exhausted
> all that I can figure out based on my decade and a half of Linux use and
> based on the wikis:
>
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EFI_System_Partition
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HP_EliteBook_840_G1  (uses EFI mode)
>
>   I have configured and tried simple MBR boot with the following setup:
>
>  # fdisk -l /dev/sda
> Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
> Disklabel type: dos
> Disk identifier: 0xff7d45aa
>
> Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
> /dev/sda1             2048 1953525167 1953523120 931.5G  5 Extended
> /dev/sda5  *          4096    1028095    1024000   500M 83 Linux
> /dev/sda6          1030144  105887743  104857600    50G 83 Linux
> /dev/sda7        105889792 1951383551 1845493760   880G 83 Linux
> /dev/sda8       1951385600 1953525167    2139568     1G 82 Linux swap /
> Solaris
>
>   grub isn't seen on boot, but popping the .iso on USB in, choosing
> "Boot existing OS", hitting 'tab' and changing 'hd0 0' to 'hd1 0' boots
> Arch fine.
>
>   I next tried with GPT and a 'bios_boot' partition:
>
>  # fdisk -l /dev/sda
> Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
> Disklabel type: gpt
> Disk identifier: 00B6A48C-CBDB-4071-A1EC-97FA828A6C26
>
> Device          Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
> /dev/sda1        2048       4095       2048    1M BIOS boot
> /dev/sda2        4096    1028095    1024000  500M Linux filesystem
> /dev/sda3     1028096  105885695  104857600   50G Linux filesystem
> /dev/sda4   105885696 1949282303 1843396608  879G Linux filesystem
> /dev/sda5  1949282304 1951379455    2097152    1G Linux swap
>
>   same result, grub not found on its own, but booting from USB works fine.
>
>   Next, stranger things being possible, I decided to try a full UEFI
> setup thinking maybe the Legacy mode for this laptop uses some contrived
> boot scheme that requires the esp partition to be present. so I
> re-partitioned the drive and went though the UEFI setup:
>
>  # fdisk -l /dev/sda
> Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
> Disklabel type: gpt
> Disk identifier: 00B6A48C-CBDB-4071-A1EC-97FA828A6C26
>
> Device          Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
> /dev/sda1        2048       4095       2048    1M BIOS boot
> /dev/sda2        4096    1028095    1024000  500M EFI System
> /dev/sda3     1028096  105885695  104857600   50G Linux filesystem
> /dev/sda4   105885696 1949282303 1843396608  879G Linux filesystem
> /dev/sda5  1949282304 1951379455    2097152    1G Linux swap
>
>   Still, grub isn't seen on boot, but now "Choose existing OS" starts
> grub, but then throws the error of "unrecognized partition type" (I
> presume is due to the UEFI setup while UEFI is disabled in the BIOS)
>
>   So I'm stuck. This box boots from the iso perfectly. After "Choose
> existing OS", I pull the USB drive, and the machine works flawlessly.
> (I've got a full plasma/KDE5 setup installed with wpa_supplicant WPA
> wifi, bluetooth, synaptics touchpad, ieee-1394, all working just fine,
> etc.., e.g. I drafted this on kwrite and sent it via thunderbird from
> this same darn box) I just can't get this box to find grub to save my life.
>
>   I need help figuring out how the .iso is booting in Legacy mode just
> fine, while I can't do the same thing from the hard drive. If this box
> can see and boot the .iso just fine, what could possibly explain it not
> seeing grub on the hard drive? Anybody have any more ideas?
>
> --
> David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
>
>