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)