Can't Install CachyOS on Laptop — Bootctl Error Code 1

Issues & Assistance
21

The error occurs at the end of the installation process. I’m not sure if the installation actually finishes. I was able to use cachy-chroot and update with pacman, but I still can’t boot after updating.

Is there a way to launch manually the bootloader after this update ?

22

If you can chroot in try reinstalling your bootloader or another one that uses the same partition scheme.

also the error I saw in your first log matches this thread

23

To manually trigger the bootloader, you can use the UEFI shell, which can be accessed from the firmware’s boot options. From there, you can navigate to the ESP and manually execute the bootloader’s EFI executable, for example, loader.efi for systemd-boot or grubx64.efi for GRUB.

Alternatively, you can use the efibootmgr command in a Linux environment to list and modify boot entries, allowing you to set a specific bootloader as the default or launch it directly.

efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0006
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0006,0003,0001,2001,2002,2003
Boot0000* EFI USB Device 1 (SAMSUNG MZVLB256HBHQ-000)   UsbWwid(bda,9210,0,01234567890)/HD(1,GPT,8a0f6224-c25e-42af-bcbe-f893a7601d6f,0x1000,0x96000)RC
Boot0001* EFI Hard Drive 1 (20472B972BC8-CT500P5SSD8)   PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x4)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/NVMe(0x1,00-A0-75-01-2B-97-2B-C8)/HD(1,GPT,120bb63d-4647-4c21-9c7d-8a0473b0c1f0,0x1000,0x96000)RC
Boot0002* EFI USB Device (SanDisk Cruzer U)     UsbWwid(781,55a5,0,20053954100F1DB33DE)/HD(2,MBR,0x62a15eff,0x1d0d800,0x10000)RC
Boot0003* EFI Hard Drive (222728802236-WD Blue SN570 500GB)     PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x2)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/NVMe(0x1,00-1B-44-8B-4B-7F-47-D5)/HD(1,GPT,54212b61-0c7a-496f-908b-9046f2165605,0x1000,0x96000)RC
Boot0004* EFI PXE 0 for IPv4 (9C-2D-CD-15-0B-65)        PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x1)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/MAC(9c2dcd150b65,0)/IPv4(0.0.0.0,0,DHCP,0.0.0.0,0.0.0.0,0.0.0.0)RC
Boot0005* EFI PXE 0 for IPv6 (9C-2D-CD-15-0B-65)        PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x1)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/MAC(9c2dcd150b65,0)/IPv6([::],0,Static,[::],[::],64)RC
Boot0006* cachyos       HD(1,GPT,8a0f6224-c25e-42af-bcbe-f893a7601d6f,0x1000,0x96000)/\EFI\cachyos\grubx64.efi
Boot2001* EFI USB Device        RC
Boot2002* EFI DVD/CDROM RC
Boot2003* EFI Network   RC

In the case of UEFI, the kernel itself can be directly launched by the UEFI using the EFI boot stub. A separate boot loader or a boot manager can still be used for the purpose of editing kernel parameters before booting.

Source

24

Thanks for the input! I finally managed to boot CachyOS. Apparently, my NVRAM was full or inaccessible. Even after deleting unused boot entries, I still couldn’t get the bootloader to work normally.

What ended up working for me was loading GRUB as a removable path. It might not be the simplest method, but it successfully booted my system.

Here’s what I did:

# Mount root partition
sudo mount -o subvol=@ /dev/<root-partition> /mnt

# Mount EFI partition
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/boot/efi
sudo mount /dev/<efi-partition> /mnt/boot/efi

# Prepare chroot environment
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/{dev,dev/pts,proc,sys,run}
for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys /run; do
    sudo mount --bind $i /mnt$i
done

# Mount EFI variables
sudo mount -t efivarfs efivarfs /mnt/sys/firmware/efi/efivars

# Enter chroot
sudo chroot /mnt /bin/bash

# Install GRUB for UEFI as a removable device
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=cachyos --removable --force

# Generate GRUB configuration
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

# Exit chroot
exit

# Unmount everything
sudo umount -R /mnt

# Reboot
sudo reboot

After this, my system booted successfully.