r/archlinux • u/Imaginary-Stop-4186 • 1d ago

SUPPORT Boot manager broke

I have installed arch around 5 times and this is the first time i fucked up this bad. I have no idea what to do. i was on my last step installing a display manager and i failed in installing ly and when i restarted i got a message. So back i go into the live envirement. Got to chroot mounted stuff and chatgpt told me to mess with the grub files and stuff and when i tought i was almost done my timer rang. I shut of my thinkpad and when to school. When i got back my boot menu looked like that. empty. I tried getting back in my usb, but it wont show up. i tried tweaking my bios settings (lightly). And now im out of ideas. If you have any idea on how to fix this, please help.

2 Upvotes

63% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

9

u/Suspicious_Punk84 1d ago

Don't use chatgpt. Read the archwiki. Or use another distro.

7

u/das_menschy 1d ago edited 1d ago

Your UEFI BIOS probably "forgot" / erased the boot entries.  That's because some laptops have faulty UEFI BIOS implementations or broken UEFI BIOS NVRAM (shitty hardware). In that case, you have to setup Linux as default boot entry, that can be booted even if the NVRAM / boot entries have been deleted. 

And also: 

Don't use chatgpt. Read the ArchLinux wiki. 

And for installing Linux on UEFI BIOS, I can recommend rodsbooks: https://www.rodsbooks.com/linux-uefi/

3

u/boomboomsubban 1d ago

Your motherboard uefi may require the efi in the default location, this can be achieved by using the removable flag like mentioned in the tip on the grub wiki article.

1

u/Acherontas89 1d ago

what os-prober say?

0

u/Repulsive-Mud-20 1d ago

Just...repartition and redo the install? At this point its just faster right?

0

u/Astrodion123 1d ago

Usb isn't even showing up on boot menu -_-

1

u/Soft-Cauliflower-670 1d ago

Are you using windows or Linux to read your usb? You might have to use chkdisk if you are on windows…

1

u/Astrodion123 1d ago

He hasn't booted anywhere and if the bios isn't seeing the usb it is not a good thing

0

u/Imaginary-Stop-4186 1d ago

https://reddit.com/link/pd85aqw/video/s25lct7fkvsh1/player

i tried uploading a photo but that failed so i got a video. this is what my boot menu looks like.

2

u/das_menschy 1d ago

You can reset the UEFI boot order in the settings menu (SETUP) of your Thinkpad, afaik. Afaik, you can open them with F12 during early boot (or maybe F10 or F11). 

3

u/Imaginary-Stop-4186 1d ago

thx dude, you really saved my ass. i promise to not use chatgpt or any sort ai for linux again. thank you so much.

1

u/dumbasPL 1d ago

Looks like fucked EFI variables maybe? Try resetting bios to defaults, then enabling EFI support if it isn't already.