Fedora Grub ignored my nobara install | Multi Boot | Windows

Note that the same issue with uefi boot is seen with many of the ubuntu variants. Their directory structure for efi mimics the actual ubuntu structure just like nobara mimics the fedora structure.

Simplest solution IMHO is using a VM for the additional OSes, or has already been stated using a fully discrete drive for installation and operation in cases where running on the hardware (such as gaming) may be required…

NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL              UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                                      
└─sda1
     ntfs         WinHome            36742FB9742F7B2F                                    
sdb                                                                                      
├─sdb1
│                                                                                        
├─sdb2
│    ntfs         OneKingston SSD    36BED8D6BED88FAB                                    
├─sdb3
│    ext4   1.0                      516b7594-0464-4eb0-9ce1-6301c8467ef8                
├─sdb4
│    btrfs                           1d6cacf6-856f-4105-b944-970792f1ca14                
├─sdb5
│    vfat   FAT32                    AA3C-62A0                             579.8M     3% /boot/efi
├─sdb6
│    ext4   1.0                      48cc5f5d-09e3-4bb5-b528-c1249ca41384    549M    37% /boot
└─sdb7
     btrfs        fedora             e99b3faf-7c41-4d2e-af19-e6c8f5829cb1   42.3G    22% /home
                                                                                         /
sdc                                                                                      
├─sdc1
│    exfat  1.0   Ventoy             4E21-0000                               1.7G    88% /run/media/seragx99/Ventoy
└─sdc2
     vfat   FAT16 VTOYEFI            223C-F3F8                                           
zram0
                                                                                         [SWAP]
nvme0n1
│                                                                                        
├─nvme0n1p1
│    vfat   FAT32                    B8B1-B102                                           
├─nvme0n1p2
│                                                                                        
├─nvme0n1p3
│    ntfs                            B0BC1EEDBC1EADBA                                    
└─nvme0n1p4
     ntfs         Disco 2 OneNVMePRO B61C4C1C1C4BD651                                    
nvme1n1
│                                                                                        
└─nvme1n1p1
     ntfs         OneNVMe SAMSUNG980 B6D69C07D69BC5D1

I edited your post and added the preformatted text tags so it appears as shown on your screen.

That listing seems to show that /dev/sdb1 may be a BIOS-boot partition which would indicate that nobara may have been installed in MBR mode initially. There is only one esp and that one is at sdb5 which would likely have been the one created by the fedora install after nobara was already installed on the drive.

Please post the output of sudo fdisk -l that you run from fedora so my guess may be confirmed (or not) and the way forward can be determined.

I would ask that you always use the preformatted text tags (available on the toolbar of the text entry screen with the </> button) when copy & pasting text from the screen. It keeps things much easier to read.

Thank you friend, I was positive I tagged the output, sorry about that :sweat_smile: sudo fdisk -l gave me this:
for clarity,
dev/sdb (kingston) is where both Nobara and Fedora are
dev/sdb3 is Nobara
sdb5 is Fedora Efi
sdb7 is Fedora
and /dev/nvme0n1p1 is Windows efi where Nobara efi is too


Disk /dev/sda: 3.64 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD40PURZ-85T
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 5C722F59-42E2-49E9-8DC4-C62786CE676F

Device     Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sda1  32768 7814033407 7814000640  3.6T Microsoft basic data


Disk /dev/sdb: 447.13 GiB, 480103981056 bytes, 937703088 sectors
Disk model: KINGSTON SUV5004
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 5EF6AFC6-C0AE-4D4D-A623-7F2BA1EAF1FA

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdb1       2048     34815     32768    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sdb2      34816 400566271 400531456   191G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdb3  400566272 402663423   2097152     1G Linux filesystem
/dev/sdb4  402663424 812263423 409600000 195.3G Linux filesystem
/dev/sdb5  812263424 813492223   1228800   600M EFI System
/dev/sdb6  813492224 815589375   2097152     1G Linux extended boot
/dev/sdb7  815589376 937701375 122112000  58.2G Linux filesystem


Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 931.51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 980 PRO 1TB                 
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: ED737897-A041-4EFD-BCA6-EC29138CD521

Device             Start        End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1      2048     206847    204800   100M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2    206848     239615     32768    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/nvme0n1p3    239616  973039615 972800000 463.9G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p4 973039616 1953521663 980482048 467.5G Microsoft basic data


Disk /dev/nvme1n1: 931.51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 980 1TB                     
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 16384 bytes / 131072 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 64CA797D-60E7-444F-BFAB-3C6CE1FAD7DE

Device         Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme1n1p1  2048 1953523711 1953521664 931.5G Microsoft basic data


Disk /dev/sdc: 14.45 GiB, 15518924800 bytes, 30310400 sectors
Disk model: USB Flash Drive 
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x5e63f055

Device     Boot    Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *        2048 30244863 30242816 14.4G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdc2       30244864 30310399    65536   32M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)


Disk /dev/zram0: 8 GiB, 8589934592 bytes, 2097152 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes

I see 3 different efi partitions

sdb5, nvme0n1p1, and sdc2.
The sizes are 600M, 100M, and 32M respectively.

Since you have 3 different sata devices (sda, sdb, and sdc) as well as 2 nvme devices (nvme0n1, and nvme1n1) it looks like it should be relatively easy to reinstall nobara on sda, sdc, or nvme1n1 and have it create its own efi partition on that device. This will keep the efi partitions separate so there is no direct conflict.

Once nobara is installed then boot into fedora and grub can be configured there with a custom grub menu entry for booting nobara.

Leaving both nobara and fedora on the same drive will make it almost impossible for grub management of booting both.

Let us know when nobara has been reinstalled on a different drive and someone should be able to assist in creating the custom menu entry for fedora to boot nobara.

2 Likes

Thanks so much for the help, so in sum, the best practice and solution would be to install windows, fedora and nobara on different drives, each with its own efi partition? again thank you so much!

1 Like

Added multiboot, windows and removed systemd-boot

In many cases rEFInd can help with multibooting on the same drive (or different drives too, I guess). As with everything to do getting computers to boot, it may or may not work, depending on hardware, firmware, OSes, the number of pigeons in Australia, etc.

If you want to give it a try, on Fedora download the RPM from The rEFInd Boot Manager: Getting rEFInd. If you have GNOME Software or KDE Discover, you should just be able to double click on the .rpm and click install, not sure if dnfdragora or COSMIC Store support this. Otherwise something like sudo dnf install Downloads/refind-0.14.2-1.x86_64.rpm should work. I think it’s supposed to setup everything just by installing the package, but if you don’t see refind when you reboot, you can try running refind-install from Fedora.

If you see refind, when booting up, there will hopefully be a bunch of options to boot from. Look out for ones with vmlinuz in the label - this will allow you to boot the linux kernel directly, bypassing the nightmare that is grub. rEFInd has a tendency to show more options than necessary, so you may have to try a bunch of them to see what works.

Operating systems have a tendency to replace refind with grub or other things when installing, or sometimes even updating. In this case, just reinstall refind, which you can do from pretty much any operating system, or run the refind-mkdefault script on an OS that has refind installed. And if you ever end up stuck in a grub menu, you can press c to get to a grub shell, and then enter exit which will hopefully return you to refind.

Good luck to fellow multibooters. You’ll need it :).