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

[David C. Rankin]

On 10/29/2016 01:18 AM, Uwe via arch-general wrote:
> Hi
> 
> Just to clarify: do you really boot from BIOS via MBR or do you use UEFI (and
> are therefore in need of GPT)?
> 
> For the latter I recommend creating a 1MB Bios-Boot-partition (ef02) with
> gdisk, some swap after that and, dependant on your personal needs, either the
> rest for system or a bit for system and the rest for home
> 

100% MBR/BIOS BOOT no UEFI used by either the Win10 OS disk I took out, or the
new Arch disk I put it. I checked in windows with:

  bcdedit /emum

to dump the bootloader config. and confirmed it was NOT boot UEFI, but just
plain mbr/bios boot. The error I get from the laptop is "No Operating System
Found" and a FD03 code if I recall correctly. Then I put the arch iso usb in,
boot, choose the existing arch install, and I'm booted into a fine SDDM and
Plasma display (chuckling that some of the bugs I filed against kde4 are still
there in Plasma (e.g. 'konqueror --profile filemanagement' still launches with
the left 'drives/folders' pane collapsed against the file listings on the right
side.) Well, at least it is consistent :)

Another curious part of the drive/boot problem, is the HP "drive test" which
happily scans over the drive holding Arch, but will just never assign it a
number. For thoroughness, I tried configuring drive access as IDE from AHCI --
no help.

Maybe is this a hapless security feature that will prevent anyone without an
arch .iso from booting my system (that alone would bewilder the government for
days....)

As yet another test, I reinstalled the 128G windows drive, it continues to boot
fine. Any other thoughts?

-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.