Set up the operating system directly from the boot drive without using a traditional installation media.
Set up the operating system directly from the boot drive without using a traditional installation media.
Consider installing Manjaro without a USB/DVD drive by using a VM. You can set up a virtual machine, write a virtual partition to the host's disk, and boot from there. Also, ensure the UEFI settings are configured correctly for the GPT partition table.
Purchase a USB drive right away. It costs under five dollars. Networking setup is possible but requires significant effort.
Your approach could face some challenges that might be tough to grasp without a solid understanding of the system. Another option involves installing a Grub bootloader on the EFI System Partition and setting it up to load an ISO from a FAT32 drive. The ISO needs to be compatible with this setup (such as the one included with Ubuntu Live images). A third method, perhaps the simplest, is still theoretical at this point—just based on assumptions. I recall some virtual machines can be adjusted to use a physical partition instead of just a file. Refer to the VMware documentation for an example: if you pick the boot image as the ISO and a genuine partition, success might follow. You could also try making two unformatted partitions and letting the installer handle formatting, one for ESP and another for the root drive. If it works out, you might skip reconfiguring grub.cfg and fstab entries entirely.
You might try using slicknux's suggestions to add grub from Windows (search online for "install grub from windows"). It looks like this approach works.
It's unclear how VMware handles such configurations, but as suggested by slicknux, you might be able to transfer the current ESP along with an empty partition into a VM and start the setup from within the virtual setup.
I don't understand how VMs manage entire disks. However, installing GRUB requires access to ESP and EFI settings on the host machine, or having the MBR available in the VM. If you can provide those to the VM, you could install GRUB inside it as suggested. But I assumed otherwise. In this scenario, putting GRUB directly on the host (like Windows) might be more effective. Still, regardless of the method you pick, you must grasp the underlying workings to avoid installation issues.
I once set up Windows 10 on a VHD and then started from it, thinking it worked the same as a physical disk.
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.
It seems like you're referencing something from a game or context. Could you clarify what you mean by "that"? I'm here to help with any questions or details you have!