Install OS without installation boot drive

[Gameborn]

I want to install manjaro, but I don't have available usb/dvd drive to create bootable drive. I have dual boot with windows and is it possible, for example, install os in virtual machine and then write virtual partition to physical? And also note that I want to boot in uefi mode on gpt partition table

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just buy a USB stick. There less than 5 bucks. 

 

You can network boot buts that's a lot of work. 

[slicknux]

Your way would work but you will hit some stumbling blocks on the way which will be hard to understand if you're not familiar with how things work underneath.

 

Another way is to add a Grub bootloader on the EFI System Partition and manually configure it to boot an ISO from a FAT32 partition. The ISO itself has to support this (like casper included with Ubuntu Live images)

 

And a third weird way but maybe the easiest for you. This is just theory in my head as I never tested such a thing, just assuming here. But I remember some virtual machines can be configured to use a real system partition instead of a file. See this image from VMware's site:

 

So if you select the boot image as the ISO and a real partition you might succeed. Maybe you could create two unformatted partitions, and let the Linux installer configure and format them, one as ESP and the other as the root partition. And if you're really lucky and it works out you could also avoid having to manually re-configure grub.cfg and fstab entries.

[Wild Penquin]

Perhaps in combination with slicknux's advice, you could install grub from Windows (google: "install grub from windows") ? Seems that it is possible.

[Night_]

@Wild Penquin

Not sure how VMware handels this sort of stuff, but similarly to what slicknux sugested, in theory you could pass the existing ESP along with a blank partition to a VM and run the installation process from the virtual environment. 

[Wild Penquin]

I have no idea how VMs handle whole disks. But to install GRUB, you need access to ESP and EFI variables (of the host machine), or if Legacy boot, MBR to the VM. Of course if you can expose these to the VM, then you could just install GRUB inside the VM as suggested by @Night_, but I was assuming the opposite. In that case installing GRUB natively on the host (i.e. in Windows in this case) might work better.

 

But again: which ever approach you choose, you need to know how things work "under the hood", otherwise there's high change something will be not installed correctly.

[vorticalbox]

On ‎29‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 7:18 AM, Wild Penquin said:

I have no idea how VMs handle whole disks. But to install GRUB, you need access to ESP and EFI variables (of the host machine), or if Legacy boot, MBR to the VM. Of course if you can expose these to the VM, then you could just install GRUB inside the VM as suggested by @Night_, but I was assuming the opposite. In that case installing GRUB natively on the host (i.e. in Windows in this case) might work better.

 

But again: which ever approach you choose, you need to know how things work "under the hood", otherwise there's high change something will be not installed correctly.

I once installed windows 10 on to a vhd and then booted from that, I believe they handle them just like they were a real drive. 

[Night_]

On 29/04/2017 at 9:18 AM, Wild Penquin said:

In that case installing GRUB natively on the host (i.e. in Windows in this case) might work better.

That would be the ideal thing to do if it were an option. But as it stands right now (as far as i know), even if it's possible to access the ESP from Windows and get a new bootloader on it, there doesn't seem to be any available Windows utilities which allow changing uEFI settings directly (similar to "efibootmgr" on Linux), thus no option to notify the uEFI about the new bootloader.

[Gameborn]

Just now, Night_ said:

That would be the ideal thing to do if it were an option. But as it stands right now (as far as i know), even if it's possible to access the ESP from Windows and get a new bootloader on it, there doesn't seem to be any available Windows utilities which allow changing uEFI settings directly (similar to "efibootmgr" on Linux), therefore no way to notify the uEFI about the new bootloader.

there is. Called easyuefi. 

[Night_]

@Gameborn

Huh, somehow i forgot that ever existed. Did it work fine for you?

[Gameborn]

Just now, Night_ said:

@Gameborn

Huh, i forgot that ever existed. Did it work fine for you?

I haven't tried it with vm, but I have in another situation(worked not perfectly). I created fat32 partition and copied files from iso file of Ubuntu and added efi/boot/bootx64.efi file to new boot entry. It booted, but haven't installed. Said that need to unmount partition that i'm booted from. Doesn't work with arch

[Wild Penquin]

23 hours ago, vorticalbox said:

I once installed windows 10 on to a vhs and then booted from that, I believe they handle them just like they were a real drive. 

Heh, I at first misread your post as I've edited it above - I though you were joking .

 

It would be funny if one could install an OS into these things:

[Turtleinahafshel]

On 4/27/2017 at 2:52 AM, Gameborn said:

I want to install manjaro, but I don't have available usb/dvd drive to create bootable drive. I have dual boot with windows and is it possible, for example, install os in virtual machine and then write virtual partition to physical? And also note that I want to boot in uefi mode on gpt partition table

look into virtualbox raw disk acces or pay for vmware pro or try to use the hyperv raw disk acces but that require the disk to be offline so it might not be possible. or yumi