Not sure if my UEFI bootloader even starts — instant reboot, kernel entry not linked

[gugus]

Hi,

I’m working on a small UEFI‑only x86_64 OS project.
Right now I’m not even sure whether my bootloader runs at all.

Repository:
https://github.com/1Trol1/os-kernel-and-bootloader

When I try to boot it, I see “Reboot system” for a fraction of a second and the machine immediately resets.
Because of that, I don’t know if:
- the UEFI bootloader is valid,
- it reaches its own entry point,
- or it crashes before doing anything.

At this stage the bootloader cannot load the kernel anyway, because even a correct bootloader would fail:
the kernel’s entry.asm is not actually linked into the ELF image, so there is no valid entry point to jump to.

So the problem is very early in the boot process — I don’t know if the bootloader starts, and even if it did, the kernel cannot be entered.

A more detailed description of the issue is in the README on GitHub.

I would appreciate help understanding how to verify whether the UEFI bootloader is even running, and what I might be doing wrong at this initial stage.

Thanks.

[Octocontrabass]

I would appreciate help understanding how to verify whether the UEFI bootloader is even running,

The easiest way to do that is to insert an infinite loop inside your bootloader so it gets stuck in the loop instead of rebooting. If you want to debug further, use a virtual machine with a built-in GDB stub like QEMU.

and what I might be doing wrong at this initial stage.

You might be relying too much on an LLM to autocomplete your code instead of writing it yourself.