[Solved]Deleted my efi partition, what to do now?

[real acorn]

Hey, Guys
I was trying to find some clue about why my graphics card was not working so I though better install POP OS, but when I got to the installation part,
I forgot that I had the arch efi in the partition and then formated that efi partition and now there is only pop's efi I can't boot arch, What should I do?

Deleted my efi partition, what do now?

Deleted my efi partition, what to do now?

[topaz root]

Can you post the output of lsblk -f and point out what each partition is?

[real acorn]

NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                         
├─sda1
│    vfat   FAT32 ESP   236C-CC06                             740.6M    28% /boot/efi
├─sda2
│    swap   1           ada265ac-21ca-4516-b65c-8cbc819b49b6                
│ └─cryptswap
│    swap   1     cryptswap
│                       d68e7d7b-c4c7-45b2-9d9f-152cb7ca1fc8                [SWAP]
├─sda3
│    crypto 2     ARCH_LUKS
│                       54da6e10-61f4-494a-afb9-9a97d2cc3f9b                
└─sda4
     ext4   1.0         a64da53b-4685-40f7-bcc8-02053f5e0dd0  182.6G     6% /
zram0
                                                                            [SWAP]
nvme0n1
│                                                                           
├─nvme0n1p1
│    vfat   FAT32 SYSTEM
│                       8694-8975                                           
├─nvme0n1p2
│                                                                           
├─nvme0n1p3
│    ntfs         Windows
│                       322891282890EBDB                                    
├─nvme0n1p4
│    ntfs         Nilesh
│                       01D842CE05F8FE90                                    
└─nvme0n1p5
     ntfs         Windows RE tools
                        A0B2C926B2C901B0        

My roots are on separate partitions

just efi

[topaz root]

is sda1 your ESP?

[real acorn]

sda1 is where my efi was

[topaz root]

tree /boot/efi

[real acorn]

Here

[topaz root]

There should be an arch-install-scripts package in the POP OS repo that provides arch-chroot.

[real acorn]

Ok

Will look into it.

[topaz root]

Since you use full system encryption, I assume you mount sda1 as /boot in arch?

[real acorn]

yup

I just have my root encrypted

not the boots

[topaz root]

Well, cryptsetup open whatever arch luks.

[real acorn]

Yes

[topaz root]

and mount arch rootfs in /mnt
sda1 in /mnt/boot

I see you have both grub and systemd-boot, which one do you use for arch?

[topaz root]

What is the current output of efibootmgr?

[real acorn]

I used grub

[real acorn]

BootCurrent: 0005
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0005,0003,0006,0004,0000,0001,0002,0007,9999
Boot0000* Ultramarine
Boot0001* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0002* Internal Hard Disk
Boot0003* GRUB
Boot0004* Fedora
Boot0005* Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS
Boot0006* Linux Boot Manager
Boot0007* Internal Hard Disk
Boot9999* USB Drive (UEFI)

[topaz root]

Once the mounting process is complete, you can reinstall grub from chroot to add the EFI entry back.

[real acorn]

ok

thanks

[real acorn]

Ok, So I just have to mount the ESP to /mnt/boot and then run grub-install then config the grub right? For that I will need to unmout the efi partition right?

Can I do these things by going into the /EFI/ direcectory and then

1.grub-install /dev/sda --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot

2. efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sda -p 1 -L <ArhcLinux> -l /EFI/<pop-os>/grubx64.efi

[random fractal]

For that I will need to unmout the efi partition right?
Nope has to be mounted

Just reinstall grub https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB

[topaz root]

GRUB will call efibootmgr,

You can simply reinstall GRUB, which will call efibootmgr. Or you can use this efibootmgr command directly

It also seems to me that the path should be \EFI\GRUB\grubx64.efi

And Pop OS uses EFISTUB

[random fractal]

PopOS?

[topaz root]

Please read the history before posting

[real acorn]

So, the thing is that I want to have both arch and pop os as choices available to boot... So will just installing GRUB do that? Cz there is GRUB present in ESP of POP the same one. I will update when i get on PC.

[topaz root]

The UEFI standard is designed so that only one ESP is effectively needed for any number of operating systems.

No unique ESP for each OS required

If you have grub in place, you can simply add it to the boot entries

Some firmware made by mediocre vendors would delete entries if there were many, hence this is a possible explanation for the disappearance of the original grub entry.

[topaz root]

However, it seems to me that you have mounted esp under an OS as /boot in the past, judging by the presence of the grub tree in the output of tree /boot/efi.

[real acorn]

Nah... The POP os Had the only option to delete the format the efi file and then only install the OS

[topaz root]

This is very rude of Pop OS.

[topaz root]

Can you explain why the grub files are in the ESP, which is now mounted as /boot/efi?

Do you mount it as /boot in arch?

[real acorn]

In arch I mounted my esp as /boot, and in pop its boot/efi, it did it automatically since it was GUI installation.

[topaz root]

POP os Had the only option to delete the format the efi file
Judging by the presence of grub files on the ESP, I don't think Pop OS has formatted your ESP,

You can restore the grub boot entry with efibootmgr.

[real acorn]

Well, Could you please explain the steps, If you don't want that's okay.

[topaz root]

2. efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sda -p 1 -L <ArhcLinux> -l /EFI/<pop-os>/grubx64.efi
   I believe that you already know how to do that.

[real acorn]

Well I don't completely understand the underlying concept for the moment, I just understand this command and I found it in a guide online.

Do I need to run the second one only? or the whole

[topaz root]

efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sda -p 1 -L "A Title For this Boot Entry" -l '\EFI\GRUB\grubx64.efi'

https://explainshell.com/explain?cmd=efibootmgr+-c+-d+%2Fdev%2Fsda+-p+1+-L+"A+Title+For+this+Boot+Entry"+-l+'\EFI\GRUB\grubx64.efi'

[real acorn]

Yes, I understood what the command is doing, but I was talking about how the things, behave in my systems.

[topaz root]

efibootmgr adds the boot entry by manipulating the efi variables in the nvram.

[real acorn]

Whoa, there

I never new this tool existed

Looks like it's in my book marks now

[real acorn]

Ok, So I'm going to run the command OK?

[topaz root]

Yes, it won't cause any harm other than a new boot record.

Change the boot record title to whatever you like

[real acorn]

Yes, the first command had the title I myself changed, Learnd that you put <thisng to change in > angle brackets

[real acorn]

Do backward slash and forward slash matter here?

Only windows have \backwards slashes

[topaz root]

UEFI standard uses \, however, this should not matter here since efibootmgr automatically converts / to \

[real acorn]

Here

Created new boot EFI entry, but I don't have all these OS's in my efi? What are all the others doing there?

the 008 One Arch Linux, I just created.

[real acorn]

Now, should I restart?

[topaz root]

Yes, give it a try

[topaz root]

Your phrasing is rather confusing to me.

[real acorn]

Sorry, English is not my native

I'm saying about all these other enteries, other that POP OS and ARCH LINUX, What are they doing there? I didn't put them there and I don't have any other OS on dev/sda

[real acorn]

I'm in my arch now

[topaz root]

Boot entries are stored as variables in a NVRAM (non-volatile random-access memory) chip on your motherboard. Unless you explicitly delete the entries, they will remain there.

[real acorn]

Thanks, but I didn't get the option to choose POP

[real acorn]

OH, I didn't knew that

[topaz root]

I am no clairvoyant, can you be more specific?

[real acorn]

Again, Sorry

So, I did get the grub menu but It only had arch in it

It didn't had the option to choose to boot pop os

Is it because grub read /boot first

then /boot/efi?

[Solved]Deleted my efi partition, what to do now?

[topaz root]

That's exactly how it works, grub lives in its own kingdom of /boot/grub.cfg and doesn't care about boot entries in nvram.

[real acorn]

then, DO i need to manual add pop with the same command?

[topaz root]

You can select these boot entries from your firmware's boot menu.

[real acorn]

OHH

Let me check

Yes.. there it is

[topaz root]

If you want to have some fun, it's possible to run Doom directly in UEFI without an OS.
https://github.com/Cacodemon345/uefidoom

[real acorn]

hey, I wanted to ask you this question, How long have you been using linux?

[topaz root]

I can't remember exactly, maybe 8 years.

[real acorn]

Well, You know I never played doom

But people seem to love it.

[topaz root]

And the classic version is now also open source (GPL v3).