Unable to boot into Kali Live from encrypted Manjaro install

Greeting everyone,

I installed Manjaro on my Surface Book about several months ago and encrypted the SSD. I bought a 128GB SD card and decided to make a bootable Kali live drive and when I attempt to boot into it (power button + volume down), the grub menu appears and asks for passcode. I enter my passcode and get “grub_calloc not found”. Is there a way to boot into an external device w/o having to decrypt my hard drive? My system specs are below:

  System:
  Kernel: 5.9.10-arch1-1-surface x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.0 
  Desktop: GNOME 3.38.1 Distro: Manjaro Linux 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Microsoft product: Surface Book 
  v: 124000000000000000000000D:0B:08F:1C:03P:38 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: Microsoft model: Surface Book serial: <filter> UEFI: Microsoft 
  v: 92.3192.768 date: 03.24.2020 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 13.2 Wh condition: 15.6/17.9 Wh (87%) 
  model: DYN X906971 status: Discharging 
  ID-2: BAT2 charge: 31.0 Wh condition: 39.8/51.0 Wh (78%) 
  model: SMP X905255 status: Discharging 
CPU:
  Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-6300U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Skylake rev: 3 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 20004 
  Speed: 700 MHz min/max: 400/3000 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 662 2: 654 
  3: 677 4: 691 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] vendor: Microsoft 
  driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
  Display: x11 server: X.org 1.20.9 driver: intel unloaded: modesetting 
  resolution: <xdpyinfo missing> 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 520 (SKL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.2.2 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Imaging 
  Unit 
  driver: ipu3-imgu bus ID: 00:05.0 
  Device-2: Intel CSI-2 Host driver: ipu3-cio2 bus ID: 00:14.3 
  Device-3: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
  bus ID: 00:1f.3 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.9.10-arch1-1-surface 
Network:
  Device-1: Marvell 88W8897 [AVASTAR] 802.11ac Wireless driver: mwifiex_pcie 
  v: 1.0 port: 3000 bus ID: 03:00.0 
  IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Marvell Bluetooth and Wireless LAN Composite type: USB 
  driver: btusb bus ID: 1-6:4 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 238.62 GiB used: 22.07 GiB (9.2%) 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: MZFLV128HCGR-000MV 
  size: 119.24 GiB 
  ID-2: /dev/sda type: USB vendor: Generic model: SD Card size: 119.38 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 107.91 GiB used: 22.07 GiB (20.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-0 
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.80 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) 
  dev: /dev/dm-1 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 36.0 C mobo: 0.0 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 253 Uptime: 22m Memory: 7.70 GiB used: 2.19 GiB (28.5%) 
  Init: systemd Compilers: gcc: 10.2.0 Packages: 1252 Shell: Bash v: 5.0.18 
  inxi: 3.1.08
  1. Yes, that’s a function of your UEFI firmware, not of Manjaro. Please read the UEFI manual that came with your hardware how to do that exactly.

  2. From grub it’s possible to boot into an ISO file on an unencrypted partition only and for Kali Linux’s /etc/grub.d/40_custom entry, refer to this response:

Sorry I’m responding late, I’ll give that a shot after I’m done finals and let you know how it goes.