i have a story here. over the past few days my old laptop (dell latitude e5440)(ran manjaro (xfce) just fine) broke down for hardware reasons so i ordered a new laptop (dell latitude e6420) and since i read u can just plop in the old ssd and it would work like new i did.
when i turned on the laptop i got the error “error attempt to read outside of hd0” and thought it as nothing more than growing pains. i restarted the laptop and got the same error but with a press any key prompt under it that didnt do anything. i restarted again and again with various variations of the fundimentally same error with various levels of loading. some would get me to some sort of failback that didnt work and others told me i needed to start the kernal first. eventually i got to the login menu after brute force and thought that everything was fixed!
it was not fixed. after i restarted it for updates i was hit with the same errors and then went on my quest to fix my grub (it sometimes took me to grub recovery, so i assumed grub was what was wrong) i used my live usb and went thru 8+ different solutions and googled every single error that popped up (some that come to mind are failures to mount, lsblk being completely glitched out, claiming i didnt have the permissions, and that i was missing a canonical directory for ‘overlay’)
finally i deleted and reinstalled manjaro on the ssd entirely. it worked after the first boot. then i restarted for an update and low an behold: the maze of grub errors.
currently, my plan is just to wipe and reinstall the live usb, and if that doesnt work im going to cry.
tldr: im on a dell latitude e6420; grub wont stop spitting out different errors and only sometimes letting me boot manjaro. i have tried everything including reinstalling the os. i need a definitive way to fix grub, or just finding a way to use a different boot loader, or a toggle i missed in my laptops bios (its currently on legacy boot)
the old laptop was also legacy bootin’, i distinctly remember how i set it so it would aways try to boot usbs first. definately legacy booting but if im still out of luck by tomorrow afternoon ill try to change it
Where’d you read that?
Even if possible … ‘like new’ isnt exactly how I would describe the situation.
Its the same install on different hardware - which can require additional steps … which would be the only thing ‘new’ about it.
I dont know what this is supposed to mean.
I would guess not.
Given the previous comments … sounds like a good plan.
Like what? Its difficult to diagnose vague mentions of “errors”.
Sounds good … especially given
Why? If possible GPT+UEFI should be preferred.
With the new hardware I’m guessing its fine.
So the plan is to reinstall? Using UEFI this time?
(and also thereby wiping out current grub install and the MBR, etc)
Great .. let us know what errors, if any, you encounter then.
Installing fresh will be the quickest resolve, in this instance, and choosing UEFI instead of MBR is definitely recommended. A shiny brand new SSD might also be worth considering, though I won’t presume to insist that it’s needed.
If using the existing SSD, make sure it’s ready for a UEFI OS; by destroying the existing partition table (MBR) and creating a new one (GPT). Otherwise, Manjaro might continue to install an MBR based system (again). This is usually handled during install, but be mindful, nonetheless.
You should also choose UEFI when creating the USB installer, otherwise, an MBR USB will likewise force an MBR installation.
The first of the following guides describes how to manually partition your drives im preparation for a UEFI install. The only addition I will make is to suggest creating a separate/home partition, which will allow much easier system recovery in future without sacrificing your user profile.