Live USB stops seeing NVMe drive - cannot install GRUB

Support
1

I have tried several times to install Manjaro in the past couple of days. My setup has an NVMe drive with Windows 10 and the EFI partition with proper size, filesystem and flags, and a second SATA drive on which I intend to install Manjaro to dual boot, both drives using GPT. I have created an ext4 partition on the SATA drive, select it during install and initially the system sees my NVMe and recognizes the EFI partition to set the /boot/efi mountpoint.

However as soon as I start the installation, the NVMe is somehow “dropped”. I tried having Gparted open and it also stops listing it in the device list after I start the installation. Consequently, Manjaro is properly installed in the selected partition but the installation fails during the bootloader setup with Boost.Python error “Installing for x86_64-efi platform. grub-install: error: /boot/efi doesn’t look like an EFI partition.” I am fairly certain that this is because it no longer sees /dev/nvme, like the controller itself disappeared.

I have disabled Secure boot, Fast boot, legacy usb, and can see no legacy boot setting in the “bios” interface. The laptop is fairly recent hardware.

I am trying hard to understand this but I am totally lost here.

2

ust before installing , check if USB iso manjaro boot is ok with no-free drivers

A) EFI bios boot

recheck all options in EFI bios

no Secureboot
no fastboot
no legacy
no CSM
all disks on AHCI
may be keep USB storage on

boot on USB iso manjaro

check if all good EFI before installing

inxi  -Mxxa ( check for UEFI or bios , not UEFI[legacy] )
test -d /sys/firmware/efi && echo efi || echo bios
sudo efibootmgr -v
sudo parted -l

launch calamares in debug

sudo -E calamares -d
3

So you reuse the EFI Partition of Windows for the Linux on the second drive. Correct?

What do you mean by “dropped”? Is it not displayed by lsblk or sudo parted -l? If so, then it would be problem with efi/firmware/kernel/calamares… But anyway… without a log I can only bury out my glass globe and think of what could eventually had happened.

like @stephane mentioned:

That would give exact information of what happened.

4

Here is the output of the commands when I first boot the live usb

[manjaro@manjaro ~]$ inxi -Mxxa
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: TUF Gaming FX505DU_FX505DU v: 1.0
serial: <superuser/root required>
Mobo: ASUSTeK model: FX505DU v: 1.0 serial: <superuser/root required>
UEFI: American Megatrends v: FX505DU.315 date: 09/22/2020
[manjaro@manjaro ~]$ test -d /sys/firmware/efi && echo efi || echo bios
efi
[manjaro@manjaro ~]$ sudo efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 000A
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0009,000A,000B,0008
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager HD(1,GPT,5a7fd92d-f358-4d61-8702-c4a3564acacf,0x800,0x82000)/File(\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI)WINDOWS…x…B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}…
Boot0008 USB VenHw(99e275e7-75a0-4b37-a2e6-c5385e6c00cb)
Boot0009* Windows Boot Manager HD(1,GPT,5a7fd92d-f358-4d61-8702-c4a3564acacf,0x800,0x100000)/File(\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI)…BO
Boot000A* UEFI: 1.00 PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x8,0x1)/Pci(0x0,0x3)/USB(5,0)/CDROM(1,0x5311a0,0x8000)…BO
Boot000B* UEFI: 1.00, Partition 2 PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x8,0x1)/Pci(0x0,0x3)/USB(5,0)/HD(2,MBR,0x0,0x5311a0,0x2000)…BO
[manjaro@manjaro ~]$ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA TOSHIBA MQ01ABD1 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 725GB 725GB ntfs Basic data partition msftdata
2 725GB 1000GB 275GB Basic data partition msftdata

Model: (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 7812MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
2 2787MB 2792MB 4194kB primary esp

Model: Micron_2200V_MTFDHBA512TCK (nvme)
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 512GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 538MB 537MB fat32 EFI system partition boot, esp
2 539MB 556MB 16.8MB Microsoft reserved partition msftres
3 559MB 511GB 511GB ntfs Basic data partition msftdata
4 511GB 512GB 682MB ntfs Basic data partition hidden, diag

What I have noticed is that after the installation, the nvme drive’s entries in parted disappear, like the device has been disconnected.

I run calamares in debug and uploaded the log here https://pastebin.com/eggSTNT8

After the fail I can get this output from parted

[manjaro@manjaro ~]$ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA TOSHIBA MQ01ABD1 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 725GB 725GB ntfs Basic data partition msftdata
2 725GB 1000GB 275GB ext4

Model: (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 7812MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
2 2787MB 2792MB 4194kB primary esp

For some reason the nvme partitions are not there anymore.

Should I try creating a different EFI on the second drive and switch from the EFI boot menu?

5

may be this

...
16:38:33 [0]: Critical warning from helper: "Could not read from device ?/dev/nvme0n1?."

is there others system on nvme ?
is hibernate activated ?

6

A few steps below the log has the same warning for the SATA drive and the usb drive as well, though it sees them properly after finishing loading the welcome screen.

The nvme has the Windows partition and the EFI partition on it. Based on the calamares output the nvme0n1 is a 1MB unallocated space between the EFI and the MSR partition.

I can not find a hibernate setting anywhere in bios, or a reference to it.

Would having a separate EFI partition on the drive I intend to install manjaro be a better solution?

7

this is hibernate fonction from windows ,
it locks nvme in this case