Sooo, you have a crucial deadline to meet, or you have an important assignment to complete. You turn on your PC, and, surprise, surprise, the PC decides to go into the BIOS menu! You try to force a restart, only to end up with the same result.

Next, you start panicking & call “that-Linux-friend”. If you don’t have such a friend, don’t worry; I have got you covered with this blog!

Steps to reinstall GRUB on Arch Linux via chroot

1. Download & Burn

  • Visit the download page, select a mirror, and download the latest ISO file. It would look something like archlinux-YYYY.MM.DD-x86_64.iso
  • Burn the ISO onto a flash disk. You can use the following command, if you are on a Linux machine (replace <disk> with your disk).
    • sudo dd bs=4M if=archlinux-YYYY.MM.DD-x86_64.iso of=/dev/<disk> conv=fsync oflag=direct status=progress

2. Boot

  • Connect the bootable disk & boot into it.

    • You might want to look up "<your laptop/PC name & version> boot menu" & follow those steps to enter the boot menu.

  • Select the first option from the options to boot into the live environment.

3. Mount partitions

  • check your disk partition table with fdisk
    • fdisk -l
  • mount your root partition onto /mnt (usually the largest partition)
    • mount /dev/<your-root-partition /mnt
  • mount your EFI partition onto /mnt/boot (usually the one 512MB in size)
    • mount /dev/<your-efi-partition /mnt/boot
      • (or /mnt/boot/efi according to your installation)

4. chroot

  • chroot onto your root
    • arch-chroot /mnt

5. Reinstall GRUB

  • Verify you have a UEFI boot (if the command shows some output, then you are good to go)
    • efibootmgr -uv
  • Install GRUB
    • sudo grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=GRUBNEW
  • Create the config file
    • sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

6. Exit, Unmount & Reboot

  • Exit from chroot
    • exit
  • Unmount
    • umount -R /mnt
  • Reboot
    • reboot

This was a short guide on how to reinstall GRUB on an Arch Linux PC. Or, a reference document for my future self! :) The same should work for all Arch-based OSs (I have tried on EndeavourOS; I can’t vouch for others!).

Huge shout out to Jazil, Shidul, Akash, Abhiram, Shijaz, and Roshan; friends – break more of your bootloaders!! xD

Found this useful? Share with someone in need! Any more tips to add? Ping me!

Or, if you’re just surfing around here, let’s get connected. I love talking to new people. :)

Find me on GitHub, Twitter, or LinkedIn.