[Solved] Grub-install error (please, specify --target...

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enrico68 · Post by **enrico68** » Fri Feb 03, 2017 3:51 pm

Hello,

My present sdd is partitioned like so:

sdd1 fat32 /boot
ssd2 ext4 /

but when I run the command

grub-install --target=X86 64-efi --efi-directory=boot

it gives me an error (modinfo.sh does not exist; please specify --target or --directory).

I have run before:

Code: Select all

echo 'GRUB_PLATFORMS="Efi-64"' >> /etc/portage/make.conf

I did the same procedure on another PC a few days ago, and it worked...where is the error?? The only difference between this setup and the one before is that this time I did not create a BIOS boot partition. Could it be the culprit? Is the BIOS boot partition always necessary?

Jaglover · Post by **Jaglover** » Fri Feb 03, 2017 4:32 pm

I do not use Grub2, but to my knowledge the so called BIOS partition is required for Grub2.

enrico68 · Post by **enrico68** » Fri Feb 03, 2017 5:19 pm

I thought so, thanks!

Jaglover · Post by **Jaglover** » Fri Feb 03, 2017 5:52 pm

There are other bootloaders you could use that do not require this partition.

eccerr0r · Post by **eccerr0r** » Sat Feb 04, 2017 10:06 am

It looks like you're trying to install on an EFI machine.

EFI machines will require an EFI System Partition (ESP) which needs to be FAT16 or FAT32, and is not a grub2 requirement (I've installed grub2 directly to an ext3 root partition - but this machine is a legacy MBR boot machine.)

Though I've not actually yet "officially" installed grub2 to an EFI machine, I've gotten an EFI machine to boot grub2 - and it only had two partitions, the ESP and Linux/Gentoo root partition. The basics is to get Portage to build grub2 as an EFI binary (grub.efi) and install it on your FAT16/FAT32 ESP. Then it will use the efibootmgr tool to ensure that grub2 is loaded as your boot EFI application. The only EFI machine that I've used I cheated and swiped the grub2.efi binary and moved it to the ESP default boot path, which for my x86 efi machine, \EFI\BOOT\BOOTIA32.efi .

fcl · Post by **fcl** » Sat Feb 04, 2017 11:24 am

OP, fyi I think you're missing a slash there in the grub-install command

grub-install --target=X86 64-efi --efi-directory=/boot

enrico68 · Post by **enrico68** » Sat Feb 04, 2017 1:12 pm

This time I created a BIOS boot partition, but the error remains. here is my partition, using parted:

sdd1 2MB fat32 grub
sdd2 134MB fat32 boot
ssd3 1000MB swap none
sdd4 50GB ext4 rootfs
sdd5 185GB ext4 home

To partition the ssd, I followed the official Gentoo Handbook.

I never had this problem before, and now it is the second time in a row...just in case, I checked ssd2, and it is mounted on /mnt/gentoo/boot.

What is wrong with my setup?

EDIT: as it is shown above, the BIOS boot partition has a fat32 fs. What happens is I do "mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/sdd2" (the boot partition) but, somehow, after I hit enter, also the ssd1 partition shows up as formatted in fat32. I tried that twice, but fat32 shows up on ssd1, no matter what. Maybe that is why I get my error message...

EDIT2: I believe the error lies with the boot partition not being ESP, the Handbook says: "On an UEFI installation, the boot and esp flags will show up on the boot partition". I do not see ESP, only boot, and I have to investigate why my system won't run in EFI mode..that is where the issues is...

enrico68 · Post by **enrico68** » Sat Feb 04, 2017 4:02 pm

not a chance...the boot partition has a "boot,esp" flag this time, but I keep getting the same error message...I don't know what else to do....

enrico68 · Post by **enrico68** » Sat Feb 04, 2017 7:06 pm

The above issue has been solved, it took me a while, but I was able to solve it!