this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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What boot loader are you using? That is what allows you to pick between what OS (in your case, drive) to boot at power-on.
Are you using UEFI for this?
I am using UEFI, and GRUB for my bootloader. I did update my post with a bit more information now.
I was not able to select boot order in BIOS because it wasn't reporting properly, or my drives were "messed up" along the way.
I did not have the option for my Windows drive listed as a bootable option. It did however show a generic entry for my WD Black drive (which is what I installed Arch on) as a bootable entry, but it ended up booting to windows after forcing the machine down because Arch hung at initializing Ramdisk.
I had the afterthought to choose to install os-prober for grub within additional packages.
Hmm.
Not being able to select boot order in BIOS suggests something very strange is going on, because it suggests that the BIOS can't see all the drives. That has to happen before the bootloader can be evoked.
It sounds like GRUB is installed on the WD Black. BIOS -> drives it can see -> boot loader
What was the specific error that the Arch boot attempt threw? How did os-prober work for you?
I sorted out Arch not booting. By taking out the Windows drive, Arch boots just fine.
If I am not mistaken, having them on separate drives may have caused some issues. Someone else somewhere had suggested that is known to cause issues.
Not sure if it's windows and GRUB fighting even though they are on two separate hard drives.
I did not end up trying os-prober at all. I went the more drastic method of removing the drive because the end goal is to ditch windows anyways.
Though my issues with Arch are a completely different thing entirely. Mostly fighting with my GPU to cooperate.
@drwho @Hellmo_Luciferrari it's not uncommon (and documented somewhere) to need to run os-prober a second time after install ; I had this 2 last times : install, get os-prober to find everything but W ; fully boot into arch when all is good, run it again and it will discover it.
Thank you for the tip. I didn't end up trying os-prober at all. I just ripped the windows drive out, and was able to get Arch installed and booted.
The issue I have now is completely different now, but I will likely revisit having Windows on another drive for the very few things that it would make easier for me.
For now it is time to wrestle with my 3090. Which I can't say I am exactly thrilled or shocked about.