Failed to install bootLoader. [Newbie]

Help
1

Hello!
I am new at NixOs and try to made dual boot with Arch (My old system).
I use Ventoy to made Flash with NixOs (Graphical Installation) and try to use it, but when i setup everything and installation going to end, it throw me ‘Failed to isntall bootLoader’.

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I never do something like this before, so i am totally unsure what i should do.
I try to find other topics about this, but didn’t found any solution for me.

2

You forgot to mount the /boot partition.

Can you check the mounts to see if /boot is successfully mounted?

Also, did you check if

boot.loader.grub.useOSProber = true

Is set? (if you are using grub)

Otherwise, you won’t be dual booting because only “nixos” will be shown then.

3

Thanks for reply.
I check OS Prober and found option GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false that was commented and i uncomment this. (Read about it here: GRUB - ArchWiki).
How can i check mounts? fdisk -l? And when i should do this? On my old system or when trying to install NixOs?

4

Also, looks like GRUB now can see NixOS, but not sure if i can launch on it.
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5

That entirely depends on which system you wanna use for boot loading.

Do you want NixOS to manage your system’s bootloader?
If yes - then you need to adjust the settings in your /etc/nixos/configuration.nix
If no - you want to keep arch as your primary bootloader then you need to enable (as you already did) the GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false and install os-prober in your arch installation.

Anyway - you should be able to boot into NixOS now with your arch-bootloader. Try it. :slight_smile:

And what I forgot in my original post: Welcome to NixOS! Enjoy your stay.

6

So, there is a little problem. Looks like NixOS menu entry didn’t apear in GRUB.

7

I try to do this manually in /etc/grub.d/40_custom:

menuentry "NixOS" {
    set root=(hd1,1)
    linux /boot/vmlinuz-linux-zen
}

But it throw error with text like “Unable to found /boot/vmlinuz-linux-zen”

8

That’s what I feared.

Probably NixOS is in an unbootable state because NixOS itself didn’t generate his boot file.

Since I am not using grub myself, I would suggest consider a reinstallation and make sure that /boot is now mounted using the mount-Command.

9

/boot wasn’t mounted, so i mount it, but it didn’t help.

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10

After trying to install it not in UEFI it installed and work, but looks like new generations builded with nixos-rebuild command didn’t apear in GRUB.
Thanks for your anwsers.

1 Like
11

If some one also got this error, here is better solution: NixOS new generations in Grub apear only after updating on Arch - #15 by ZaksenCode.