[SOLVED] BIOS not seeing my drives after install

[frank frost]

First time arch install, I’ve been making heavy use of this YouTube tutorial:

https://youtu.be/FxeriGuJKTM?si=WNoBzBM1cs6PyqR8

Basically did exactly what he did in the manual installation chapter, but after setting up grub and unmounting and rebooting, rather than booting into gnome the system booted back into the usb stick. Furthermore the only storage device recognized by my BIOS is now the usb stick I’m installing from. Please advise.

[frank frost]

When I boot into the usb stick,
lsblk shows the partitioned drive.

nvme0n1 is the drive I set up during installation. The partitions look correct to me from here.

[ionic thistle]

Mind telling me your partition layout?

By the way, I don't recommend following video tutorials as they can be outdated pretty quickly, plus you don't really learn much as you're just following instructions.

[sharp basin]

if he's going by the vid, it's an lvm setup. I will be of exactly zero help. probably... 2 things right off the bat tho, by what the op posted, is the bios csm enabled or disabled and is secure boot on. fiddle around with those settings in the bios should let you at least see the boot parts in the bios. Might not boot, and you might have to redo your install, depending. But first timer, I'm with the previous commenter.
Depending on how deep you want to go(and if you're trying to setup an encrypted install, that'd be pretty deep) the wiki is really where you should start. But if you just want something up and running without too much hassle, use the archinstall script. LVM is an option there too. But dont ask me about it, cuz i dunno. I don't encrypt my os, just my drives. I think there's a wiki page for archinstall too.

[ionic thistle]

I think LVM is already pretty deep, especially for someone who's new to arch

[ionic thistle]

I'm expirienced in using LUKS and LVM (I use both on my home server :3)

I don't like using the word "best" as it's a slippery term, but I think it would be beneficial for OP to start again from scratch and follow the install wiki page

[hardy fog]

Try checking the boot menu, and if it doesn't have anything, you may need to manually add your Arch Installation's GRUB .EFI file from your EFI partition.

[ionic thistle]

I understand that a script is a good way to get started, but if you're unfamilar with Arch then you're just hurting yourself in the long run as you'll be left with a system you don't know how to maintain

May I ask @hardy fog what lead you to want to try Arch?

[hardy fog]

Nothing much, I am just a frequent distrohoper.

[ionic thistle]

Okay cool! Did anything that Arch did catch your eye spesifically? I used to be a hopper too so I know the feeling lol

[hardy fog]

I like how barebones it is, and pairing it with a window manager can help me get a desktop without anything that i didn't choose to install myself.

Other distros with DE usually have many things that I do not want and will not use.

[ionic thistle]

I 100% get that :3

Since you have expirience with linux already, I think you should be alright reading the install page on the wiki

I recommend starting from scratch! I could help you with your current setup, but I think it's prety involved for someone who's new

[hardy fog]

Yes, I am.

[ionic thistle]

You are?

[hardy fog]

I'm not new.

I am pretty experienced.

[ionic thistle]

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide

Cool! So then I recommend following this ^w^

[hardy fog]

I don't think I'm in need for help currently, thanks though

[limber phoenix]

Core [PapercrownKitty] received a thank you cookie!

[ionic thistle]

Did you get it working?

[hardy fog]

Yeah, but I do not use Arch right now.

[ionic thistle]

Ok

Please put [RESOLVED] in the title ^^

[hardy fog]

This is not my post, I think you got confused.

[ionic thistle]

I am

LMAOOOO

I'm so sorry

^w^;;;;;

[hardy fog]

Yeah that's fine, you were willing to be helpful afterall!

[sharp basin]

op is probably doing a grub install if going by the vid. I know you'd need to do that for systemd boot, but dunno if that's applicable to a grub lvm.

[hardy fog]

It can be applicable to GRUB too, when I installed Arch Linux, neither my BIOS nor the Boot Menu showed Arch. I had to add the .EFI file for GRUB manually as a Boot Entry.

[ionic thistle]

When I first installed Arch iirc I did use GRUB and I don't recall needing to do that

But I changed to EFI Boot Stubs and now I just use Unified Kernal Images LOL

[frank frost]

Am following the install guide on the wiki, the video is mostly just so I can see certain things in action like the device encryption (not that that helped). My system has 3 disks but I’m only setting up 1 rn cuz I just wanna get the thing running and then I’ll fiddle with adding the rest.
Have 2 partitions on my disk, one is efi system partition, the other is Linux lvm.
My goal here is to have the lvm partition split into 2 logical volumes, one for boot stuff and one for home directory and for the home volume to be encrypted.

[frank frost]

By boot menu I’m assuming you mean in my BIOS and yes it only shows the install medium as the only bootable device. Plz elaborate on where I should move grub to? I feel like the issue has to be just boot info in the wrong place

[hardy fog]

Boot into the ISO, chroot into your installation with arch-chroot, and run grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=[your esp mount] --bootloader-id=GRUB --removable.

[frank frost]

I have done this. Tho I am thinking I maybe misunderstood how to denote the esp

[ionic thistle]

What do you have as the esp mount?

[frank frost]

/boot

[frank frost]

Bios is in uefi mode. That was something I had to learn existed. Also secure boot was on. This process has really helped me overcome my fear of the bios. Neither of those things got it to boot but every little thing like that I catch is a step towards victory.
I’ve restarted this process so many times at this point, I’m committed to seeing it through. It’s already been such an educational process.
I am trying to do encryption but dm-crypt has been a persistent challenge even with the wiki up. LVMs are also really confusing and I’m starting to question the necessity

[ionic thistle]

If you're on an efi system, iirc the wiki mentions that esp mount is /boot/EFI

[frank frost]

Redoing the whole thing again rn almost at that part gimme a sec lol

[ionic thistle]

Lol all good!

[frank frost]

Actually I’m not that close I’m putzing with the lvms rn

[ionic thistle]

May I ask why are you using an LVM?

I hope I'm not sounding mean >.>

[frank frost]

Not at all lol

Organization mostly I guess?
That and it was explained to my by someone else that they would make encrypting my home directory simpler. So far I don’t believe that part to be true

Also paranoia a little bit idk it just feels a little dirty to drop stuff into my disk raw like that

I am rapidly approaching the fuck-it point on that tho

I can encrypt just lv_home but that overrides ext4 formatting so I either have to make another lv inside lv_home and format that which is just messy or encrypt the whole pv which is what I was doing and I’m pretty sure that was causing a problem by encrypting the boot stuff

This was the main thing I watched that video for and the way he did it just confused me even more

[ionic thistle]

What I use on my Steam Deck's Arch installation is just an encrypted root partition and encrypted swap using it's TPM

But I wouldn't really recommend doing something like that as you're just starting out

For example, if you want to use a LUKS header on a root partition to decrypt when booting, you need to become familiar with changing your kernal parameters and changing what modules load at boot.

And if you want to have a swap partition which is encrypted too, so you can suspend your session safely, then you would most likely be using systemd-cryptenroll to register it with your computer's TPM

I get the feeling of wanting to have data encrypted though, so I'm more than happy to help!

But I think it would be better to start from the start again, this time only consulting the wiki

If you'd like, we could move to DMs!

[frank frost]

I’ll keep that in mind if I quit at this. Rn I feel like I’m getting close and I wanna see if I can figure it out. Idk what a tpm is yet.

[frank frost]

I really wanna find a way to just put luks on my home directory

Without making a big mess of it

[ionic thistle]

Trusted Platform Module. It's in a lot of computers now and you can think of it a way for your computer to identify itself to software

[ionic thistle]

For that you'll have to use a seperate home partition

As far as I'm aware, LUKS only works on partitions, not directories

[frank frost]

Also I have other disks I haven’t even touched yet cuz I figure I’d add them in once I have a system that boots and as I understand it, adding new PVs to an already existing LV is the simple rout? Idk maybe I’m being messed with

[ionic thistle]

It depends on what you want to do. I think as you're just starting out and your disk layout shouldn't change too much, you can get away with just mounting each disk/partition

Although yeah, LVMs make having multiple disks more transparent to software on your PC, it's not something that I think a lot of users really need

To me, having that sort of flexibility is more suited to server level stuff (As I only use it on my server at home)

[frank frost]

Rn I’m thinking the encryption is overkill. I think I’m gonna try an install with just the lvm cuz I haven’t quit on that yet. I’ll come back to encryption once I’m smarder

[ionic thistle]

But why LVM? Are you going to be needing the flexibility? Or is it just to have all of your disks appear as one huge partition?

I can help you with that too tho so it's all good!

[frank frost]

That second one

Idk they just make sense to my ape brain

Until they don’t

[ionic thistle]

All good lol

[frank frost]

It’s one of the few things that at this point I can kinda already comprehend the practical benefits of but can’t yet comprehend the downsides besides just being complicated to set up but this whole thing is complicated to set up so full send

[ionic thistle]

Lmao fair

[frank frost]

You win I’m going in raw

No lvm no encryption just uefi and root partitions

Thank god I still have a windows machine otherwise itd probably be months before I figure out how to play video games again

[frank frost]

Ok I ordered a pizza and calmed down and I’m at the part where I set up grub once again

[ionic thistle]

Cool!

So mind telling me what you've done for this installation?

[frank frost]

I set up a uefi system partition and a root partition. Formatted them accordingly. Mounted the root partition, created the boot directory, mounted the uefi partition to the boot directory.
Pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware
genfstab yadda yadda
(Don’t fully understand that one yet)
arch-chroot /mnt
time and date and locale stuff
And root passwd

Oh and I installed nano in there somewhere

And I think I did nvidia-open? I honestly don’t remember if I did that this time or not

Pac-Man grub and efibootmgr

Lol thanks autocorrect

Mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt

Meaning “esp” is /mnt

Right?

Then
mkdir /mnt/EFI/GRUB

efi-directory=/mnt?

[ionic thistle]

Nope

So esp is your EFI directory

In your case, it would probably be /boot/EFI

[frank frost]

The wiki says installing grub creates the directory esp/EFI/GRUB

so I guess esp is probably /boot

Aaaaaaaand it booted to the usb stick

Wellp bed time

[hardy fog]

you are misunderstadning how paths work in chroot. When yo chroot into /mnt, the /mnt becomes your new root which is /. so if you mounted your ESP to /mnt/boot before entering chroot, the path to your mounted ESP inside the chroot is simply /boot. Run this command inside the chroot: grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB --removable

[ionic thistle]

Oohh myb

[sharp basin]

uh, turn off secure boot... shoulda mentioned that before. you can set it up later if you want. but your bios won't see your os boot part till secure boots off.

and secure boot is on but it's booting the usb?

[hardy fog]

turn off secure boot because it is what prevent the unsigned .efi binary from getting rejected by the firmware

[frank frost]

Secure boot *was on and it still booted the usb yes

After I gave up last night I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to try again. I booted into the bios out of curiosity and noticed the drive was listed and the boot order was changed to place it after the usb stick. As of last night I have a working installation.
Marking the thread as solved, I’ll be back later with a summary of issues I ran into and things I learned from this process. Thank you everybody who took the time to help out and give advice.

[SOLVED] BIOS not seeing my drives after install

Hoo man that felt good

[ionic thistle]

Glad to hear you fixed it!!