I appreciate any insight I can get on my issue … This is a new to me used machine … I5, 16 gigs refurbished and has a fresh win10 install.
I removed both HDD that came with machine and installed my own HDD one has a fresh fully updated Manjaro install.
Gparted still shows I have 3 drives installed, SDC is a 28 gig efi drive?
There is only 2 physical drives installed. … where does SDC come from
Reading the wiki, it could either be permission problems or the EFI partition is full and no room for grub … here is the log … appreciate your guidance on fixing the issue.
https://termbin.com/0xkn
Hello @Los_Control,
… could perhaps be a 32GB usb flash drive you use for your live-enviorment/install-medium.
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Doh! … you are correct. Thanks. I’m posting from the live install media.
I recently had a similar issue on a slightly older machine and EFI was a partition at the beginning of the HDD. I installed Manjaro on a different drive and used the other one for storage.
I have done the same thing here but now I’m guessing EFI is in the bios and no space or permission to install grub.I dunno … maybe will have to keep windows and use windows boot loader to boot linux.
This bios is driving me crazy, it is set to boot from usb, if the windows drive is plugged in … it boots windows and ignores usb. …. going to have to hot swap the drive while usb is booting …. just stupid!
This is my first time running into a issue like this … must be a better way then to install linux next to windows just to use windows boot loader. Editing bios is above my pay grade.
This is just a shop PC, I use it for music and podcast while welding and fabricating in the shop.
Already on 2 days of shop being shut down just to install a os on this box …. guess I’m going for a dual boot without grub.
What does lsblk -f has to say?
I just put the windows drives back in … it has a 1TB and some sort o SDD, and I installed my Linux 500 gig drive.
**\~** lsblk -f ✔
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
loop0 squash 4.0 0 100% /run/miso/sfs/livef
s
loop1 squash 4.0 0 100% /run/miso/sfs/mhwdf
s
loop2 squash 4.0 0 100% /run/miso/sfs/deskt
opfs
loop3 squash 4.0 0 100% /run/miso/sfs/rootf
s
sda
└─sda1 ext4 1.0 aba6b2d5-b118-4680-9d6f-7f50f67a3a1d 332.5G 22% /run/media/manjaro/
aba6b2d5-b118-4680-9d6f-7f50f67a3a1d
sdb
├─sdb1 vfat FAT32 SYSTEM 5CB0-A28D
├─sdb2
├─sdb3 ntfs Windows F8D8B277D8B233AA
└─sdb4 ntfs Recovery B016B33416B2FB04
sdc iso966 Joliet MANJARO_KDE_2508 2025-09-02-12-39-09-00 0 100% /run/miso/bootmnt
├─sdc1 iso966 Joliet MANJARO_KDE_2508 2025-09-02-12-39-09-00
└─sdc2 vfat FAT12 MISO_EFI 1CCA-FF2A
sr0
**\~**
with this current setup, I tried to use the installer to resize the 1TB to install next to windows … the failed to resize the partition … was going to try gparted to resize it next.
Ooops, i forgot you cannot see the size if partition is not mounted. Anyway, you can check if sdb1 is full from gparted. If you have 4-5mb free you should be good and can reinstall grub. Grub is about 2 mb.
So what exactly is the issue? It looks like you have a dual boot set-up but I can’t see anything specific that you’ve mentioned relating to that.
Calamares could not install grub for some reason is the issue. Maybe the partition is full, or broken, or maybe the system was booted in legacy mode…the first 3 ideas that i have.
/dev/sdb1 is 260.00MB … still not mounted, gparted does not give a option to mount it. No idea if it is full or not.
I did try to resize the 930 gig windows partition using gparted, it failed … so I started gparted using sudo in a cl and it still failed to resize it.
Now I’m thinking I have a permission issue. …. I’m really at a loss here.
I can not resize the windows drive because of permissions?
I can install on a different drive, grub can not be installed because of permissions.
I can remove all window drives and install Linux drives, Grub still fails to install … that has to be a bios issue. …. what else could stop it?
I say this is a older refurbished pc . HP Z240 …. Walmart sells used PC’s online …. it just seems that whoever refurbished it has added a latest bios update? … I have no clue and always use older hardware. ….
Thank’s Teo I’m pretty sure I turned off both secure boot and Legacy in bios … will go back and check
Is Windows FULLY shut down? … i.e. “Fast Startup” disabled.
In an elevated Windows Command Prompt:
powercfg /h off
Otherwise disk access issues are to be expected. 
I have been using Linux for 15+ years, I’m not a computer guru I just like the way it works.
A dual boot is simply a way to work around my current issue …. I will never use windows … I just need a boot loader.
Thank you BG, fast startup is enabled …. I will change that now and reboot
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Just throwing it out there … I shut fast boot off and booted and try to resize and install alongside windows …. failed to resize the partition.
Although it did start off the usb with the windows drive plugged in …. so it does help …. still can not change the drive partitions from live environment.
Now I’m going to shut down and try a Linux drive again with no windows on it … if I still have a problem, then it has to be in bios.
260 MB should be enough, probably not full. Windows files are around 90MB.
DO NOT resize the windows partition from gparted. Shrink it from windows itself with the volume management tool.
Anyway, we have a rule for one issue per topic. The current issue is the inability to install grub to efi, which probably have enough space. Another common reason would be is you booted the live usb in CSM/legacy mode. Please check this in the firmware settings of the pc.
Just a thought … especially after all this experimentation, it’s possible there is some corruption on the Windows partition. You could try running a disk integrity check from within Windows to see if this helps? 
I believe the aim is to remove Windows once the Manjaro installation succeeds?
Yes, checking NTFS, just as resizing it, should be done from within windows.
Checking the ESP partition would also not hurt, since it is FAT and prone to corruption. If you had a running manjaro it is done on every boot. Now you can check the ESP from do live usb session with gparted (do not mount the partition to be able to check it)
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Yes, checking NTFS, just as resizing it, should be done from within windows
Fine, but now I have no window drives/partitions installed …. just a single 1TB Linux Manjaro drive installed.
Grub install still fails with no windows partitions connected to the machine.
The only drive installed has grub installed on it …. yet a fresh install fails installing grub and I think it is in permissions.
This has to be in the bios … I have Legacy & secure boot disabled
Fast boot is disabled ….
There may be another setting in Bios, I have no clue what would stop grub from installing … it is not the HDD
I have worked on this for 2 days …. somewhere, somebody did something to prevent Linux installed on this machine. … It is either hardware or bios, there is not 1 windows partition installed. Still get a permission error installing grub.
Open to suggestions …. think I’m going to be a quitter here.
Out of 5 PC in the house, wife runs win10 on the living room PC …. she is going to get her old I3 updated to this I5 …. Happy wife, happy life. I will just install Manjaro on her old PC, perfect for the shop.
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If you think it is the permissions, take a look at the fstab on the installed system. Not that the esp is mounted read only or something.
Otherwise, i am out of ideas. By now you should have checked esp size, corruption, permissions and the firmware settings. There is nothing more left to check, i believe. Probably something in the bios, but what…
P.s. i do not remember but you checked the usb session was running in efi mode (if you can open
/sys/firmware/efi )Because that can confuse the installer.
I have to be honest here …. I had been giving bad information … I ordered a refurbished Win10 machine. … I never spent any time on it … I just wanted to erase it.
Now I have spent time on it, it is actually Win11 & not 10 as I described …. this changes everything.
I’m going to have to change my search options to figure this out
I apologize for calling it win10.
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