I attempted to update the Kernel in Manjaro and now I'm stuck in a boot loop. What to do?

[Coastin_01]

Hey. I need some help. I'm running Manjaro KDE on my PC. I haven't been using my PC since May. I just tried to update the kernel. I added the new kernel. And tried to restart my system. But now I'm stuck in a boot loop. The system will start up and let me unlock the encryption on the drive. But after it opens the drive slot it proceeds to restart and boot into the BIOS. Which obviously is not ideal. I have two drives in the system. An SSD and a HDD. The SSD is what I have the OS on. I'm open to sanitizing and reinstalling on the boot drive. However, my main concern is that it might affect my secondary Hard drive, which I have all my important data on. What troubleshooting can I do to the boot drive to stop the boot looping and open the OS? Additionally can I do this without having to sanitize? Or is sanitization the only option? Anything will help.

[FuzzyYellow]

hold shift while booting to get into grub. you should be able to select another kernel.

[RollyShed]

Try above.

If not remove the HD and do a re-installation from an iso on a USB stick on to the SSD. With the HD removed it can't be corrupted.

[Nayr438]

Since Manjaro is based on Arch Linux and I believe still uses GRUB, it may be related to https://archlinux.org/news/grub-bootloader-upgrade-and-configuration-incompatibilities/

[The Hope]

I would first of all use a Linux live environment to copy your files from the unbootable drive to a backup drive.

Once that's done, the easiest option might be to reinstall Linux, then you just have to make sure you only select the correct drive for the installation, the SSD.

From experience I can say that FreeBSD is the most robust operating system in terms of stability and data security. The installation is a bit more difficult but once it is installed it is rather user friendly. You probably know yourself if you have the skill for this type of system. You can always upgrade FreeBSD to a newer version without any problems so while they don't have a rolling release philosophy you can keep updating it indefinitely without having to reinstall your system.

Then there's also Void Linux which is technically a rolling release but should be more stable than Arch and Manjaro. I don't know if Void is more stable in reality, but I haven't experienced any problems with Void myself. The XFCE version with glibc installs quickly if you try it. Together with Clear Linux, Void is the fastest Linux suitable for workstations. You have the XBPS packages and you also have Flatpak and Nix so you have around 100 000 packages at your disposal with this system.