Booting hangs at loading vmlinuz-arch.efi (UEFI boot)

Question

Hello,
I have just installed Arch Linux on my desktop machine (UEFI motherboard) which contains drives & partitions as follows:
1. /dev/sda (~ 250 GB) with
1: Win 7 64 bit
2: ntfs partition for data
3: ntfs partition for programs
2. /dev/sdb (1 TB) with
1: ntfs
2: fat32 / vfat as the uefi partition thingy
3: linux fs with swap, root and home
I have followed the Beginners' Guide dow nto the letter.
So I used rEFInd to set up the UEFI boot manager. However, it hangs at using the vmlinuz-arch.efi file/partition (?) on boot.
I have tried booting with a new efibootmgr entry as well, but it still hangs.
At this point, I'd like to know:
How can I get rid of all the rEFInd boot manager entries?
What precisely do I have to do to get it working? I could, of course, read around on here all day, but I somehow won't really learn anything as I can't deduct the right path of action for myself. If the machine weren't my productive system I'd definitely "play" around a lot more, that's for sure.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

henrik wrote:
Thanks for your reply.
s1ln7m4s7r wrote:
OK, i will post, maybe it can help you!
First you need to boot from the arch installation media in UEFI mode. Mount your system partitions and chroot into it.
If you only have refind and kernel files under /boot/efi/ you can delete all files (clearing the EFI partition).Then run
modprobe efivars
. If you want to remove any efi entry, you can do it with
efibootmgr -b <entry_number> -B
Ok I did that.
sed -i "s/root=PARTUUID=XXXXXXXX rootfstype=XXXX ro/root=UUID=$(blkid -s UUID -o value $(df -k /)) rootfstype=$(blkid -s TYPE -o value $(df -k /)) ro/" "/boot/refind_linux.conf"
You meant here for me as wlel to exchange the X's wit hthe corresponding keys, right? I mean I did it. Would not make sense to me to call the comman with lots of Xs.
The rest was quite easy, I paid a lot of attention and made sure  I typed in everthing correctly.
I am now at a blank black screen and there is a white underscore flashing in the upper left corner.
edit Can't boot into Windows anymore. Can't repair the MBR / UEFI boot with the Windows 7 DVD either...
edit2 Did lots of googling and at least Win 7 works fine again.
No. All the code is for you to type exactly as it is. The only statements you need to replace are <drive_with_efi_partition> and <efi_partition_number> with your current setup. What the line you questioned does is to replace the lines with "root=PARTUUID=XXXXXXXX rootfstype=XXXX ro" using the linux "sed" command, in refind_linux.conf with "root=UUID=<autodetected_uuid_of_your_root_partiton> rootfstype=ext4 ro". That will only work with the original refind_linux.conf, so if you edited it, you need to rerun
cp -r /usr/lib/refind/config/refind_linux.conf /boot/
There are 3 main reasons that may caused you to boot into a black screen with nothing written on it.
1. By not writing the code as it is, and editing files by hand instead, you may have done something wrong;
2. Your computer is booting from the wrong uefi entry, intead of the one created earlier;
3. You need to have "nomodeset" in your kernel boot line.
When does the black screen apears? After selecting a refind entry from refind's menu? Right after the pc boots (refind menu does not appear)
Another thing. In order for you to have access to windows, you need to edit refind.conf windows corresponding entry and remove the disabled statement or it wont appear on refind menu
Last edited by s1ln7m4s7r (2013-04-05 17:02:18)