Unable to boot into EOS after install

stringer · October 17, 2024, 9:04pm

I’ve been beating my head against the wall for the past couple of hours trying to get EOS installed on a SSD.

The ssd in question: ~400GB NTFS used as a secondary windows drive (Windows itself is installed on a completely separate SSD), 100GB un-partitioned where EOS will go. I’m using the latest iso on a Ventoy USB drive. Booting in the live CD using Ventoy’s normal mode and the Nvidia entry for EOS.

As for the installation steps, I went with online, KDE Plasma, defaults for everything and went for manual partitioning, which I set up in the following way:

1024 MiB Fat32 mounted in /boot/efi with boot flag set
4096 MiB linuxswap
rest, ext4 mounted in /

Install finishes successfully and upon restart, I can’t get into EOS. There are no boot entries for it in the BIOS, only Windows and the Ventoy drive.

I’ve reinstalled EOS about 6-7 times now with the same result. I’ve also tried with the Windows drive unplugged to the same results.

I am completely out of ideas as there is no sign of something going wrong.

ddnn · October 17, 2024, 9:11pm

Welcome to the community!

You will need to use a Linux/Unix filesystem like EXT4 (recommended) or BTRFS.
Not sure how the installation even started. As far as I know, NTFS can only be used as a storage partition, not one that contains your actual installation (i.e. Linux root partition).

stringer · October 17, 2024, 9:14pm

Hello, like I stated in my post, the 400GB NTFS is a different partition on the SSD that is not used in the EOS install.

EOS itself is installed on a ~95GB EXT4 partition mounted at /, created just before installation using manual partitioning, along with the swap and efi partitions.

ddnn · October 17, 2024, 9:17pm

I see. The way you worded it wasn’t exactly clear.

That said, please boot into the Live USB again, then run the below command in a terminal:

inxi -Fxxc0z | eos-sendlog

Or just:

inxi -Fxxc0z

Then post it here.

You can follow this guide for more info: https://discovery.endeavouros.com/forum-log-tool-options/how-to-include-systemlogs-in-your-post/2021/03/

Particularly this command:

lsblk -o name,type,size,PTTYPE,FSTYPE

joekamprad · October 17, 2024, 9:20pm

The install-log could tell a story.
If you boot the ISO without going to reinstall you can find it on the partition called endeavouros from filebrowser under /var/log/endeavour-install.log

Thats also not 100% clear, you do partition before starting the installer or you choose manual partition inside the installer?

Bink · October 17, 2024, 9:21pm

You will also need to make sure, that in your BIOS/UEFI:

Legacy / CSM boot mode is disabled.
Secure-boot is disabled.
Fast-boot is disabled.

Details for these are mentioned here:
https://discovery.endeavouros.com/installation/live-iso-tricks-tips/2021/03/

stringer · October 17, 2024, 9:24pm

Apologies for that, I can see how it may be confusing.

As for the output:
https://0x0.st/XILR.txt

Contents of endeavour-install.log:
https://0x0.st/XIL7.txt

Also as for the UEFI settings, Secure & Fast boot are disabled, but I’m not quite sure about CMS, I’ll have to check in a second and get back to you.

stringer · October 17, 2024, 9:28pm

Just confirmed, CMS is disabled as well.

@joekamprad As for the partitioning, I chose the manual option from the installer.

joekamprad · October 17, 2024, 9:41pm

you tried to use boot once menu on boot?
Pressing F12 or F8 or esc on boot and got system internal boot menu?

stringer · October 17, 2024, 9:43pm

Yep, only shows Windows Boot Manager & the flash drive. I also tried installing it with the windows SSD plugged out and removed the flash drive after installation, and the computer just booted into the bios.

@ddnn ,

lsblk:
https://0x0.st/XI9-.txt

joekamprad · October 17, 2024, 11:10pm

[PYTHON JOB]: Found gettext "en_US" in "/usr/share/locale/en_US" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "Bootloader: grub (efi)" 
    .. Running QList("grub-install", "--target=x86_64-efi", "--efi-directory=/boot/efi", "--bootloader-id=endeavouros", "--force")

log shows no error on installing bootloader …

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdd1         34     32767     32734    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sdd2     264192 767068159 766803968 365.6G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdd3  767068160 769165311   2097152     1G EFI System
/dev/sdd4  769165312 777553919   8388608     4G Linux swap
/dev/sdd5  777553920 976773134 199219215    95G Linux filesystem

partitions also looking correct EFI system etc…

Only thing i see is that first partiton is Microsoft reserverd usually you would have the efi on the beginning of a drive plus having reserved partition in the beginning looks strange to me. Could be it is irritating the EFI firmware… on live session check if there is really no entry in nvram:
efibootmgr
Should have a Grub entry named endeavouros

ricklinux · October 18, 2024, 1:39am

sdc1 has 100M vfat which is probably the Windows efi.

Lemon · October 18, 2024, 8:26am

We have had a few installation issues with Ventoy, if memory serves me right.
So, maybe reinstall and burn an iso to a thumbdrive?

manuel · October 18, 2024, 8:47am

The install log shows you did not select the proprietary Nvidia driver support, so you seem to have only the open source nouveau driver. This may not work with Nvidia 4070.
So, you need to arch-chroot to the installed system (see the EndeavourOS wiki how-to) and run command

nvidia-inst

Alternatively, you can reinstall by selecting the Nvidia driver menu option at the boot menu in the beginning.

joekamprad · October 18, 2024, 11:47am

and check this indeed… in case ventoy can boot on secure boot enabled system … but EndeavourOS not…

stringer · October 18, 2024, 4:56pm

I can confirm secure boot is indeed disabled.

@joekamprad, I moved the partitions around a bit and left 1GB of space at the start of the drive for the efi partition, and the order is now efi, microsoft reserved, ntfs used by win, 4g swap, EOS root and the issue still persists.

I’ll try doing the install without Ventoy.

@manuel I think I reinstalled EOS like 8 times now and the install those logs are from are probably from when I tested without the nvidia option, to see if that was the issue.

joekamprad · October 18, 2024, 5:42pm

This would be interesting to see

stringer · October 18, 2024, 5:48pm

I tried doing a non-ventoy install same result, but as for the efibootmgr entries, I found something interesting.

After I finished the install (without restarting) I could indeed see an entry for endeavouros.
I restarted, again couldn’t boot into EOS so I went back to the live image and running efibootmgr again, endeavouros is now gone and only the windows boot manager & USB entries are present.

Right after install:

[liveuser@eos-2024.09.22 ~]$ efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0002
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0003,0000,0001,0002
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager  HD(1,GPT,ce155b01-b9e3-41e6-bc1a-dd0a2c6660e0,0x800,0x32000)/\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI57494e444f5753000100000088000000780000004200430044004f0042004a004500430054003d007b00390064006500610038003600320063002d0035006300640064002d0034006500370030002d0061006300630031002d006600330032006200330034003400640034003700390035007d00000035000100000010000000040000007fff0400
Boot0001* UEFI:  USB    PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x2)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/USB(3,0)/CDROM(1,0x536b20,0x51040)0000424f
Boot0002* UEFI:  USB, Partition 2       PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x2)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/USB(3,0)/HD(2,MBR,0x4a514722,0x536b20,0x51000)0000424f
Boot0003* endeavouros   HD(1,GPT,f12e366d-268d-4a86-92d3-5819ec4ac5ac,0x22,0x1fffde)/\EFI\endeavouros\grubx64.efi

Restart right after install:

[liveuser@eos-2024.09.22 ~]$ efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0002
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0001,0002
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager  HD(1,GPT,ce155b01-b9e3-41e6-bc1a-dd0a2c6660e0,0x800,0x32000)/\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI57494e444f5753000100000088000000780000004200430044004f0042004a004500430054003d007b00390064006500610038003600320063002d0035006300640064002d0034006500370030002d0061006300630031002d006600330032006200330034003400640034003700390035007d00000035000100000010000000040000007fff0400
Boot0001* UEFI:  USB    PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x2)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/USB(3,0)/CDROM(1,0x536b20,0x51040)0000424f
Boot0002* UEFI:  USB, Partition 2       PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x2)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/USB(3,0)/HD(2,MBR,0x4a514722,0x536b20,0x51000)0000424f

I noticed that when rebooting, in the boot message things it’s saying that it’s failing to umount /run/archiso/bootmnt or /run/archiso/airootfs, not sure if that has anything to do with it.

joekamprad · October 18, 2024, 6:07pm

should be unrelated …

joekamprad · October 18, 2024, 6:13pm

thats … no clue it seems to remove the entry after it was able to write it… as if it would not be able to write the entry install would fail…

could you try rewriting it?
Would need to use arch-chroot from the ISO:

replace with your current used devices for the / ext4 (/mnt) and the fat32 esp /mnt/boot/efi …
in case its still grub bootloader used…

sudo mount /dev/sdd5 /mnt
sudo mount /dev/sdd3 /mnt/boot/efi
sudo arch-chroot /mnt
grub-install

in case still using the same drive and it was not changing check with lsblk -f

You said already you changed the esp to be first so it will be /dev/sdd1 i bet…
and in case here is the complete wiki around that:
https://discovery.endeavouros.com/system-rescue/arch-chroot/2022/12/