Installation Error - Failure reading sector from 'hd1'

Support
23

They are, indeed, and there has already been a brief discussion about this issue earlier. The suggestion was even made by one of the Team members to return to ext4 as the default filesystem.

The root of the problem is however neither btrfs nor calamares, but the lack of proper btrfs support in grub. But only upstream — i.e. the GNU developers — can properly remedy that.

In the meantime, things appear to be a hit-and-miss. For some, there’s no problem at all. For others, there is.

However — and we are looking past the issue here — this problem is supposedly why the 25.0.4 ISOs were pushed out, while the OP is still trying to install from a 25.0.3 ISO.

Addendum:

If the OP does not want to download a more recent ISO, then I would suggest opting for manual partitioning and either creating a separate /boot partition of about 512 MiB — which is enough to hold a couple of kernels — with an ext4 filesystem, or just choosing ext4 instead of btrfs all across the board, which is perhaps the easiest solution.

2 Likes
24

This time, I replaced my HDD partition into the ext4 format. But the ran through same error with different sector “0x7f840” from ‘hd1’.
BTW this was on the latest version 25.0.4 “Zetar” , so no this must not be the case now.

ISO File Checksum:
0ca0274ad59b2c9972e88455af8d387f6b2fc3dc811061f4e33fccdf481a31f5  manjaro-gnome-25.0.4-250623-linux612.iso
0ca0274ad59b2c9972e88455af8d387f6b2fc3dc811061f4e33fccdf481a31f5
CertUtil: -hashfile command completed successfully.
26

Does your partition start on a 1-MiB boundary?

1 Like
27

Did you only checked the downloaded ISO file or did to check the checksum of the prepared USB key?

28

Sorry but I am not aware of this, is there any thread related to this? Also one question I had in my mind, the bootloader Manjaro was selecting on my ssd as FAT32 partition on /dev/sda1 but that partition doesn’t exist (or if it does it’s Windows Boot Manager) so could this be the part of the problem? or Windows Boot Manager accommodates both the Boot Mounts?

29

Yes I checked right now the checksum of prepared USB key and it’s the same.

0ca0274ad59b2c9972e88455af8d387f6b2fc3dc811061f4e33fccdf481a31f5
CertUtil: -hashfile command completed successfully.

From step 5, I would have to run that on live USB stick.

30

That might possibly have been discussed elsewhere already, but having your partitions aligned on 1-MiB boundaries has pretty much been a requirement for almost two decades now.

Still, occasionally, and for reasons unknown, some people do have misaligned partitions.

The FAT32 (vfat) partition you are referring to is called the EFI System Partition. I do not use Microsoft Windows, and so I do not know whether it assigns a different name to that, but I’d be surprised if it did. :man_shrugging:

1 Like
31

Your question isn’t very clear, however, the following might be helpful.

:information_source: Information only:-

The Windows Boot Manager is installed to the $ESP of the disk the OS is installed to;

  • $ESP/EFI/Microsoft and a file is copied to $ESP/EFI/BOOT

The Manjaro UEFI boot files are also installed to the $ESP of the disk the OS is installed to;

  • $ESP/EFI/Manjaro and a file is copied to $ESP/EFI/BOOT

In either case the $ESP is typically the first partition on the disk, and formatted as FAT32 (vfat).

In a multi-boot scenario where Manjaro and Windows are being installed to the same disk, the boot files of each OS must share the same $ESP. Extra care should be taken to ensure one OS does not overwrite or format the $ESP in the process, otherwise the result is that only one OS is able to boot.

It’s highly recommended to install each OS on a separate disks: Multi-boot Windows and Linux on Separate Disks, though I concede this is not always possible; especially if one has a laptop with only one disk, for example.

Partition types are defined by special partition codes; for example the code for FAT32 could be “Microsoft basic data” 0b00, 0c00, 1100, 1b00 or 1c00;

However, none of these make the partition a fully qualified EFI System Partition (ESP). For that, the code ef00 must be defined.

These codes typically don’t need to be remembered when installing Manjaro, as Calamares (the Manjaro installer) sets special flags automatically during install. That said, If one uses the manual partitioning method, these flags must also be set manually.

Under some circumstances, one OS may be installed as UEFI/GPT and the other installed as BIOS/MBR. For a successful multi-boot, each OS should be installed the same way.

The computer must be properly set up as UEFI. The OS Installer (DVD/ISO/USB) must also boot as UEFI. Failure to observe this fundamental rule often results in confusion over why one (or both) OS will not boot as expected; See: Create a Ventoy USB to launch Manjaro (and other) ISO’s for information on properly creating a Ventoy USB.

Regards.

1 Like
32

I would have to look that, Is that a necessary requirement tho? Google says it is used to increase performance, but in my case I can’t even boot.

33

Thank you for this detailed information. I tried installing Manjaro to one of my other USB just to see this bootloader (EFI) thing, one thing I noticed when I was installing it on my HDD, the bootloader by default was installing on (sda1) or Windows Boot Loader which was of 100 MB size. When I did on USB, it said 300 MB for FAT32 EFI system, So could this be the root of the problem? It might be that Bootloader would not have sufficient space thus couldn’t mount. Sorry If this lacks detailed information since I am novice I could send screenshot but that’s not the way!

34

Yes, it is. It’s hardware-related.

No. The 300 MiB is a suggestion. Everything depends on how much you will store in there, and MS-Windows is known to park a lot of stuff in there, but GNU/Linux doesn’t.

1 Like
35

Okay right now I’m trying to install Manjaro onto other USB, it’s not required there as well right?

36

Um, a USB stick is a very different thing to a HDD or SSD. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

2 Likes
37

And as far as I know, Calamares won’t allow you to install on a USB stick…or any removable media for that matter.

1 Like
38

I just successfully installed Manjaro Gnome minimal onto my USB stick!!

# System Details Report
---

## Report details
- Date generated:                              2025-07-09 22:02:50

## Hardware Information:
- Hardware Model:                              Lenovo Lenovo ideapad
- Memory:                                      4.0 GiB
- Processor:                                   Intel® Core™ i3-6100U × 4
- Graphics:                                    Intel® HD Graphics 520 (SKL GT2)
- Disk Capacity:                               1.3 TB

## Software Information:
- Firmware Version:                            0XCN37WW
- OS Name:                                     Manjaro Linux
- OS Build:                                    rolling
- OS Type:                                     64-bit
- GNOME Version:                               48
- Windowing System:                            Wayland
- Kernel Version:                              Linux 6.12.34-1-MANJARO

Couldn’t send this from Manjaro’s firefox because I forgot the password.

1 Like
39

Note that installing Manjaro to a USB disk is not an officially supported configuration. If you did this, perhaps that is part of the problem.

Insufficient space on the $ESP (created by Windows Setup) is unlikely to be a problem. That said, I would personally prefer a larger $ESP. Where it could potentially be a problem is when “triple-booting”, for example, or if Microsoft (in their infinite wisdom) decide to add more stuff to the EFI/Microsoft directory.

It is possible to make the $ESP larger during Windows Setup, though it requires using advanced Microsoft tools via the command-line.

Of course, using separate disks for each OS is the safest approach and avoids these potential issues completely, because Windows then keeps it’s own boot files on it’s own $ESP, and it’s simply “chain-loaded” from the Manjaro $ESP.

2 Likes
40

Since I read this, I tried “Manual Partition” on my HDD. I made following partitions:
512 MB FAT32 ‘/boot/efi’
4 GiB linuxswap
32 GiB ext4 ‘/’
106 GiB ext4 '/home/ (rest)

I ran across this error:


The installer failed to create partition on disk '<Disk name>'. Details:

Create a new partititon (32.00 GiB,ext4) on '/dev/sdb'

Job: Create a new partition on device '/dev/sdb'

Command: sfdisk --force --append /dev/sdb

Failed to add partition 'New Partition' to device '/dev/sdb'


Failed to add partition 'New Partition' to device '/dev/sdb'
41

Might it be that /dev/sdb is formatted in msdos (and not gpt), i.e. carrying a MBR and allowing only 4 primary partitions? Or have you consumed all unallocated space already for other partitions?

3 Likes
42

You’re correct, it only allowed 4 partitions (allowed bootloader and swap only). So should I remove swap and root partition? Will it work without them?

43

Please use gpt instead of msdos as partition-table

1 Like