How to create a new boot entry without the system freezing Acer ES1-732

Hello everyone!

The short question:

I have an Acer ES1-732 laptop and I wish to dual boot Windows and Manjaro Linux on the same drive. Everything is installed fine, but I can't add Manjaro's grub to the boot entrys (I tried multiples way such as the Linux grub install, Hasleo EasyUEFI and DiskGenius both in Windows but it makes the system freeze everytime), and thus I can't boot directly into it, I only have the option to boot to Windows.
The thing that is really frustrating me is that if I plug in my Manjaro burned pen drive and boot from it, I can select "Detect an EFI file" and then choose the grub file to get to the Manjaro grub bootloader, letting me choose to start Manjaro, Windows and other stuff. So the file is here, the system just doesn't want to add it as boot entry and boot from it directly.

Thanks in advance to anyone who will try (and succeed I hope) to help me

And sorry for my broken english I just figured that english would get more answers

(Yes I have secure boot disabled, no I don't have the option to set an efi file to trusted when secure boot is enabled, no I don't see Manjaro or grub bootloader when holding f12 on startup, and no, I will not give up before I get it to work.)

Long version:

I've recently installed Manjaro Linux on my laptop dual booting with Windows on the same drive. I had already done a multiples dual boot Windows/Linux installs with other machines and distros in the past, and they all went flawlessly.

Nevertheless, this time, the Linux install was going perfectly well until the grub install (90%). It systematically made my system crash. I thought there was a problem with the installer so I installed Manjaro without grub, and then installed grub manually, but the system froze again right when I entered the command

grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

Something was definitely off with grub but at least I had Manjaro on the drive, so I tried to use rEFInd instead. It still didn't work... but this time it wasn't because it freezed, I just gave up cuz I don't understand a thing at how this thing works (lul)

And then I don't remember exactly what happened, I searched a solution for 2 days reading through thousands of lines of forum threads without any answer in it.
I ended up updating my bios (yeah I know, that **** was making me that crazy). This made Windows unbootable stating "No bootable device". Idk what happened tbh. So I grabbed my Manjaro ISO burned pen drive and it accepted to boot from it. I clicked for the first time of my life on the "Detect an EFI file (or smth)" option hoping to get the windows boot efi file, and it was here, along with grub!

When I selected it, everything was perfect. The Manjaro grub background, the option to start Manjaro OR Windows (and other stuff), and every option worked perfectly fine. It even repaired my Windows boot somehow!

So I knew the file was here. All I had to do was to set it as a boot entry.

I searched how to do it in Windows (I'm still more comfortable in Windows) and I first downloaded EasyBCD. Warning message saying I was under UEFI and options where missing, BOOM every add entry option greyed out, unreachable.

So I searched again and found EasyUEFI. The minimalist interface made it seem too easy, and I was right. BOOM freeze when creating the entry.

I did even more research and downloaded DiskGenius. The app seemed more complete and gave me hope, but when it came to creating a new boot entry, BOOM still freeze.

I tried searching on Google, Bing, Yahoo, heck even Oscobo about how to add a new boot entry for the Acer ES1-732 but I didn't find anything anywhere. Not even someone asking it on a forum with 0 answers or anything, like I was the only guy in the universe getting in trouble creating a boot entry.

So here I am, I created an account just for this ngl, just to ask you this question:

How do we create a boot entry without the whole system completely freezing under Acer ES1-732?
Is there a way to boot into the Linux that is installed into my Cwithout needing to boot from my pen drive, selecting to choose an efi file and then choosing the grub file? (I SEE THE FILE RIGHT THERE BUT I CAN'T DIRECTLY START FROM IT

)

Thanks in advance to anyone who will try (and succeed I hope) to help me
This is my first time posting here I don't know if I did something wrong,
and I'm sorry for my broken english, I just figured that english would get more answers

Written by a lost guy, simply trying to add a boot entry to his machine but failing miserably.

N.B. I WANTED TO PREVIEW THE TEXT I WROTE AND I MISSCLICKED CANCEL INSTEAD. THE GUY WHO INVENTED AUTOMATIC DRAFT SAVES I LOVE YOU

Accepted answers

Kittatro

Okay so I did a genius move: I can't create a new boot entry, so why not just edit the Windows one... And it works ****

Idk what the freeze problem is due to, but now it works and it's all I need. Maybe I ********* up with something important when creating partitions.

In any case I wish I'll never have to deal with that kind of thing again.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/np/4r0eoti4j1jz.png

Successfully booting with grub yay

//Edited the content to hide sensitive information.

All comments

JackE

>>>I have an Acer ES1-732 laptop and I wish to dual boot Windows and Manjaro Linux on the same drive. Everything is installed fine,>>>

No, it didn't seem to install fine. Re-do the Manjaro iso on another GPT scheme FAT32 stick for UEFI bootstrapper and try it again.

Kittatro

JackE said:

>>>I have an Acer ES1-732 laptop and I wish to dual boot Windows and Manjaro Linux on the same drive. Everything is installed fine,>>>

No, it didn't seem to install fine. Re-do the Manjaro iso on another GPT scheme FAT32 stick for UEFI bootstrapper and try it again.

The first day, I've already tried with 3 different sticks, or the other editions of Manjaro like KDE, and even other distros such as ubuntu but it was always freezing when it came to installing grub. Even when installing grub manually. After doing my research I concluded that it freezed when grub was trying to add a new boot entry to the computer.

I don't remember exactly everything I've done because I've been searching for 3 days now, but I think I've installed grub without creating a boot entry and it worked.
I have the grub efi file on my C: drive; and I can start it using the usb stick to choose an efi file to start from. I can use the grub startup menu installed on my computer if I boot from the usb stick. As the title says, I just want to create a new boot entry for it.

Why I'm almost sure it's not a problem with the installation is because when using DiskGenius for Windows, simply going in the "Set UEFI BIOS entry" section and clicking add new boot entry makes my computer freeze, without touching anything about Linux.

Kittatro

Okay so I did a genius move: I can't create a new boot entry, so why not just edit the Windows one... And it works ****

Idk what the freeze problem is due to, but now it works and it's all I need. Maybe I ********* up with something important when creating partitions.

In any case I wish I'll never have to deal with that kind of thing again.

Successfully booting with grub yay

//Edited the content to hide sensitive information.

Kittatro

Thank you for your help!

I ended up finding a solution by myself but I'm really grateful you tried to help me

Now that I have the answer can I mark the discussion as resolved or smth? I'm new here idk if this exists on this site.

Kittatro

Update: Don't do the Edit windows bootloader it will just reset the next time you'll boot into Windows. Instead open the Windows command prompt as administrator and type in

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\manjaro\grubx64.efi

It sets grub as the default boot manager. I don't think that's what I wanted to do first when trying to add a boot entry but it works.

JackE

Congrats. But it sure looks to me like something got messed up during the installation with editing the FAT32 efi partition to add the \EFI\manjaro\grubx64.efi subdirectory. If you examine the efi partition, you will note a separate \EFI\Microsoft\boot.efi or similar subdirectory. So you were not actually editing the Windows bootloader trusted file.

Kittatro

I don't know tbh, surely I didn't do the things exactly right. I just got kinda overwhelmed with a ton of informations, non working fixes etc in the past 3 days and just wanted it to work. The bootmgr stuff I came up with isn't flawless cuz doing 'sudo grub-install' in Manjaro still freezes the computer but I'm tired and I don't have the strength to fix it, maybe another day.
Grub works as expected as long as I stay in Linux. I need to retype the bcdedit command every time I boot in Windows or else grub gets overwritten by windows bootloader or smth, so I made the command a .bat file sitting on my desktop. I don't use Windows much anyway (only for .exe school stuff).
Thank you for your support, now I really need to touch some grass or I'll get crazy