Installation on partition instead of drive / dual boot support

[Danmoreng]

I had my laptop setup to have dual boot between Manjaro Arch and Windows. Both on separate SSDs.
My plan was to simply install Omarchy instead of Manjaro on the same partition on drive 1, using the new Omarchy 2.0 ISO, while Windows stayed on drive 2.

First issue

There was not an option to install it on a partition, I could only select a drive. I guess this is due to the drive encryption, it would be nice to have the option though to install it on a partition only.
Whatever I thought: my Windows is on the other drive anyways, so I can wipe the entire drive. (bad idea, I had a second windows data partition on drive 1 - data gone, my bad)

Second issue

Since the complete drive got deleted including the UEFI partition which was on that drive and had a grub bootloader which allowed for dual boot, dual boot was gone. I don't know if that issue is easy to fix, as I suppose the whole system is not designed for dual boot, but it would be nice to have. Manjaro has that option when you install it.

ChatGPT managed to guide me through the process of restoring the windows boot loader onto the newly created UEFI partition by omarchy. So now I can boot back into Windows.

For anyone who needs to restore a Windows bootloader, I used this to repair it. You need to boot from a Windows USB installation stick.

Choose Repair your computer → Troubleshoot → Advanced options → Command Prompt.

Once inside the recovery Command Prompt:

1. Open diskpart and assign a drive letter to EFI partition

diskpart
list vol

Look for the FAT32 partition (~512MB–1GB). That is your EFI (sda1 from Linux).
Suppose it is listed as Volume 2.

Assign it a letter:

select vol 2
assign letter=Z
exit

Now the EFI partition is mounted as Z:.

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2. Run bcdboot to restore Windows Boot Manager

Your Windows installation is on nvme0n1p2 (the big NTFS partition). In recovery it’s usually C:. Confirm with:

dir C:\Windows

If you see the familiar System32, then C: is correct.

Now run:

bcdboot C:\Windows /s Z: /f UEFI

Explanation:

• C:\Windows → points to your Windows installation.
• /s Z: → puts boot files on the EFI partition.
• /f UEFI → ensures UEFI boot format.

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3. Reboot

Exit the command prompt and restart your system. Now your EFI partition will contain:

/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi

[samrudhnelli]

If you want to install omarchy on a partition, you can manually install a basic version of arch (with / without) archinstall depending on your needs and then install omarchy on top of it..
https://learn.omacom.io/2/the-omarchy-manual/96/manual-installation

[dhh]

Yes, as mentioned, current ISO is only for full install. Partitioning requires a manual install.

[JanEber]

When is partitioning an "official" option?

[maxoux]

Would be nice indeed

[JanEber]

So i just installed Omarchy on a partition with this guide: #1651
Its actually fairly simple and doesnt take long. Id just increase the sub-partition size for boot which used up a bit more than 500mb on my machine i believe. (Or at least it made me feel safe to increase it lol). So far everything works fine. I havent checked if the manual Setup actually mimicks the auto install 1:1 since i followed the guide blindly. So do this at your own risk but like i said i have no issues.

[malix213]

1- install omarchy on vm
2- clone VM disk to partition
3 - resize VM disk according physical disk
4 - update grub according physical disk if

[tcgumus]

i think this issue should be reopened. not being able to install in a partition is a lot of misses for first time users.