rEFInd Bootloader doesn't show up in UEFI after cashyOS install

Issues & Assistance
1

Hi there,

I’m a newbie to CashyOS and Arch Linux but I’m happy to finally change from windows to Linux gaming. Still Windows needs to be installed alongside with CashyOS. So, I opted for a separate NVME just for Cashy. I installed it with rEFInd restarted but ran into the issue that I can’t find a bootable drive in my UEFI menu.

These are the steps I already did:

  1. checked efibootmgr after install but before restart: Boot0003* rEFInd Boot Manager was there as expected

  2. checked efibootmgr after restart: Boot0003 rEFInd was gone

  3. refind-install:

    image
    image1732×1304 393 KB

    Boot0003 came back.

  4. restarted: can’t find the device in UEFI, starts into Windows

Little hardware info: I’m using a msi z490 gaming plus board.

I’m about to install CashyOS with systemd-boot but my goal is to get it running with rEFInd.

Do you have any tips?

Thanks in advance,

ad0R

2

wiki.cachyos: rEFInd

> Incompatible with some MSI boards (due to UEFI spec violations).

3

I saw that, it’s also mentioning:
”Can have issues (workarounds required)”

and

“Fixable with a workaround, but requires extra steps.”

I’m wondering what is the workaround.

4

don’t know cause never used a MSI board
the workaround would be specific to that…

5

If rEFInd does not appear in the UEFI boot menu after installation, you may need to manually create a boot entry using efibootmgr .

For an example only, if the ESP is on /dev/sda1 , run: efibootmgr --create --disk /dev/sda --part 1 --loader /EFI/refind/refind_x64.efi --label "rEFInd Boot Manager" --unicode .

If rEFInd is installed in the default fallback path, copying the refind_x64.efi file to /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi on the ESP

But wouldn’t it be easier to install rEFInd on a small USB Thumb drive and boot from that. (More on that if your interested)

6

Thank you, I’ll try that.

//Edit: I created the boot entry successful, but still not visible in UEFI/BIOS after restart :confused:

I’m interested but I need a little explanation to understand what that means :wink:

7

Would installing Limine or systemd-boot fix that?

8

I’m in a rush today, very busy but first download the Linux version of Ventoy:

Extract the downloaded tarball to a folder on your system.

Open a terminal in the extracted directory and run the installation script with root privileges using the command sudo ./Ventoy2Disk.sh -i /dev/sdX, replacing /dev/sdX with the actual device name of your USB drive (e.g., /dev/sdb).

After that just copy a current version for rEFInd,

Scroll down until you see this “A USB flash drive image file”

After the DL extract that zip file and copy the image, it should read as refind-flashdrive-0.14.2.img
Now just copy that to the Ventoy USB drive and when your ready Reboot to that USB Ventoy drive and select refind.

Now to refresh all new drives press [Esc] that will look for any newly connected bootable drives.

All this seem like a huge hassle but it has saved my bacon more than once. :wink:

I’ll check back to see how your doing, and Good Luck.

btw if your drive is big enough you can keep a install .iso as well.

ls /run/media/me/Ventoy/
1.refind-flashdrive-0.14.0.2.img  cachyos-desktop-linux-250828.iso
9

did you do that and does it work?

10

I have the same board and my reFind works fine, if i can help by showing you my config i would be happy but dont know what you would need

When you say its not visible in bios, the first screen only lists the first 5 entries you need to go to the advanced boot settings and all entries should show

11

I have been in the advanced settings. My NVMe drive isn’t listed, so I cannot select it :confused:

Which BIOS Version is your Board on?

image
image868×150 40.8 KB

How did you install CashyOS? The manuel partioning way?

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I’ll try to get it working first with some other options and maybe get back to your solution. Definitely need a new USB thumb drive for that :wink:

12

The model of board is a bit newer on my end, i thought z490 was the model :laughing:

Product Name: MEG Z490 UNIFY (MS-7C71)

I am using the BIOS A.E0.

I installed cachyOS from a live usb. I gave the OS its own partition on the same drive as windows.

I used the auto partition on install and let it have a whole partition

The boot drive is on a separate disk formatted to 512mb fat32

Initially i used grub but it wouldn’t detect windows. I switched to refind which worked out of the box.

If i did it again i would partition the boot drive as 2GB and use limine.

I tried to move to limine but it wouldnt detect the drive and I dont really want to make a new partition/reinstall.

13

So I updated my BIOS to AE0. But still refind and Limine didn’t work.

Systemd-boot worked, so I’ll stay with that for now unless I get hold of the “Workaround” mentioned in the documentation :smiley:

Thank you all for your help.