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/East-Yogurtcloset272]

First mistake is taking some random action to fix a problem

Learn what journalctl does and troubleshoot your system next time

You now need to restore your kernel and have your boot loader point to it

[u/M2k1e0L]

Undo what you did.

[u/archover]

I believe that rebuilding the initramfs cures some problems. Random type problems like you describe are puzzling if true.

Understanding how to mount and chroot is an essential skill.

For other readers, note that failure to boot DOES NOT mean your user files are lost or at risk, at all.

Hope you resolve and good day.

[u/FocusedWolf]

Some of this might be different now but when i used LTS i installed these related packages:

linux-lts linux-lts-headers nvidia-lts nvidia-settings

EDIT: AI said "nvidia-lts was replaced by nvidia-open-lts for supported GPUs. Pascal and older GPUs require a legacy driver". Also had this warning in my notes to not install nvidia-lts if using nvidia-dkms.

The last step to add LTS to the grub menu was to do $ sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

[u/HipKat2000]

Amazing how ChatGPT has helped me out of shit like this

[u/slylte → u/HipKat2000]

yeah, but building your troubleshooting skills is important. I don't remember a single solution an AI has given me, cognitive offloading is incredibly detrimental.

fixing a hosed install might happen when you don't have access to the internet, it's good to be ready for that

[u/Deckma]

What boot loader are you using? You probably just need to fix the bootloader. Find the arch wiki page for your bootloader and debug from there.