Suddenly cannot boot

[u/Zealousideal_Ease191]

I have arch already since about half a year with no problems, but today it had a lot of random 1 sec Freeze's. So I installed linux-lts. Then rebooted, but it didn't turn on. Every time i rebooted it put me in bios.

Then I chrooted with my arch-live-usb and tried to pacman -Syu and it worked ,but didn't help. I also tried grub-mkconfig, but I think it only made the config for the usb, although I was on in chroot.

I managed to deleted linux-lts, also didn't help.

Thank for helping me in advance.

[u/xdominik112]

You have to mount both boot and root partition same as with manual install to update config since grub.cfg is in the boot partition(most likely efi) . As describled here https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB#Generate_the_main_configuration_file . READ NOTE and then click on BBS post in it

Reminder that after installing new kernel you need to run re-run grub-mkconfig everytime

Also for you case does it instantly reboot you into UEFI menu (need to reinstall grub/bootloader) or does it boot into GRUB and then to continues to UEFI setup after not finding any boot entries (need to remake grub configuration file)

There is also possiblity of your hardware - most likely storage (SSD/HDD) dying or becoming corrupted.

[u/Zealousideal_Ease191 → u/xdominik112]

But when I run grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg (in chroot). It says adding boot menu entry for EFI bootNext: UEFI: "the live usb" Yeah, I have no boot option in UEFI. And I never saw the Grub menu. So I tried grub-install --efi-directory=/mnt/boot . And it said Installing for x86-64-efi platform. grub-istall: error: /mnt/boot doesn't look like an EFI partition. Although I did mount the boot partition "mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/Boot" Hope my SSD is not dying :( it's only a couple years old.

[u/xdominik112 → u/Zealousideal_Ease191]

So it doesnt detect your root system , when running the grub mk-config .

I assumed your system was installed with Efi/uefi partiction but now I am not sure. Did you install it in BIOS mode ? I did that before also by mistake since you have to live usb in UEFI mode during 1st install (my brother also made same mistake)

If its efi your disc should look like this if you use fdisk -l (its small L) it should look similar to THIS .

What filesystem did you use ? Ext4 , BTRFS ? Because BTRFS you need to mount differently under chroot like THIS .

If you dont know I would just find another PC and make Gparted livecd . Then it should look like THIS . Click view at top then check Device information . Is your SSD in GPT or MBR partiction table ?

If it doesnt show efi partiction or 1st partiction with like 100MB-1GB then it prob was installed in BIOS mode or when in Gparted it doesnt have esp/boot flags then your partiction got corrupted for some reason.

Then either set those flags in live-cd gparted OR

you have to remake this partiction and SET those flags. If you remake partiction then you need to remake fstab entry as well.

If after all of this this still doesnt work then good luck. Since you fix your problem you would need either many hours of someone's help that knows what he is doing either testing your SSD or fixing your system and w/e you did mistake with. But based on you saying that this parted with 1 sec microfreezes then there is big possiblity of some hardware in your system being broken, it doesnt even have to be SSD , maybe be something else

Edit: If you want to know how to fix stuff then archwiki is your best friend . Learning how to read it and understand it is hard but information is invaluable . I would recommend you do so if you plan to stick with archlinux and choose another distro if you dont want to do so

[u/Zealousideal_Ease191 → u/xdominik112]

Ok I got it running

My boot partition was flaged as EFI. My filesystem was ext4.

So I think what worked is : Reinstalling the kernel (that means it also runs mkinitcpio). And or Manually deleteding everything in /boot. And running grub-install and mkconfig.

I do not know what I did or what happed to my PC when it got these Freeze's.Yeah now it works fine no Freeze's etc. I just hope its some cosmic ray hit my SSD while booting lols.

Anyways, Thanks a lot for helping me with my problem)

[u/drucifer82 → u/Zealousideal_Ease191]

Did you mount the filesystem before running any grub config commands or updates? You have to mount your filesystem before chroot

[u/M2k1e0L]

Undo what you did.

[u/East-Yogurtcloset272]

First mistake is taking some random action to fix a problem

Learn what journalctl does and troubleshoot your system next time

You now need to restore your kernel and have your boot loader point to it

[u/archover]

I believe that rebuilding the initramfs cures some problems. Random type problems like you describe are puzzling if true.

Understanding how to mount and chroot is an essential skill.

For other readers, note that failure to boot DOES NOT mean your user files are lost or at risk, at all.

Hope you resolve and good day.

[u/akram_med]

if it puts you straight into bios it means that the bootloader is not detected, did you enable secure boot? because you need to disable it

[u/Deckma]

What boot loader are you using? You probably just need to fix the bootloader. Find the arch wiki page for your bootloader and debug from there.

[u/FocusedWolf]

Some of this might be different now but when i used LTS i installed these related packages:

linux-lts linux-lts-headers nvidia-lts nvidia-settings

EDIT: AI said "nvidia-lts was replaced by nvidia-open-lts for supported GPUs. Pascal and older GPUs require a legacy driver". Also had this warning in my notes to not install nvidia-lts if using nvidia-dkms.

The last step to add LTS to the grub menu is to do $ sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

[u/HipKat2000]

Amazing how ChatGPT has helped me out of shit like this

[u/slylte → u/HipKat2000]

yeah, but building your troubleshooting skills is important. I don't remember a single solution an AI has given me, cognitive offloading is incredibly detrimental.

fixing a hosed install might happen when you don't have access to the internet, it's good to be ready for that

[u/marci-boni → u/HipKat2000]

ChatGPT kicks ass in Linux knowledge! I have to admit she configured my entire Ubuntu server and it was great learning along the way . But I asked each command with descriptions of what that command do so was up to me if I wanted to run it or not . She’s very useful for this I mean r u telling me here people remember commands long like this text ? I don’t believe so , just to mount my 8 drives automatically in ntfs and being able to access them remotely too took a lot of command especially because before actually changing shit we were running lots of read only command to fully understand (for me ) what I was doing

[u/HipKat2000 → u/marci-boni]

Exactly. And I don't just copy/paste into a terminal. I try to find what each command actually does and tbh, most of it, at my age (62) gets harder and harder to hold onto