Deleting an EFI partition without deleting the OS partition?


  1. riffwraith
    Posts : 229
    W7 64 Ult
       New #1

    Deleting an EFI partition without deleting the OS partition?


    Hi. I have a weird issue. Not sure how this happened, but...

    Deleting an EFI partition without deleting the OS partition?-efi.jpg

    As you can see, I have an EFI partition on the same drive as my OS partition. I know how to delete partitions with DISKPART, but as far as I know, using that command will delete all partitions on the drive selected.

    Unless I am wrong, does anyone know if there is a way to delete the EFI partition w/o negatively affecting the OS? Worst case, I can always reinstall the OS; I have actually just done this the the other day, so doing it again is no biggie.

    Thanks in advance.
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  3. gregrocker
    Posts : 50,642
       New #2

    We have to assume that is the System partition booting Win7 when you install in UEFI mode. Do you recall choosing the Win7 installation media (DVD, flash stick, etc) as a UEFI device in the BIOS Boot menu or Boot priority settings?

    If not rightclick on the Disk Mgmt panel there that says Disk0 to see if it offers to "Convert to MBR" as shown below which will confirm it is now formatted as a GPT disk and therefore a UEFI install. Do not convert the disk!


    This is fine and as it should be for a UEFI install which takes full advantage of all of the new BIOS features as explained in Technical Note: UEFI BIOS vs. Legacy BIOS - YouTube. There are several advantages to a UEFI install but none to change to an MBR install.
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  4. AddRAM
    Posts : 13,576
    Windows 10 Pro x64
       New #3

    Your disk is probably GPT and needs to be converted to MBR before you can delete that and install windows without having the EFI partition.

    There`s nothing wrong with having the 100 MB partition. But the choice is yours.

    Greg beat me to it :)

    Follow his advice.
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  6. riffwraith
    Posts : 229
    W7 64 Ult
    Thread Starter
       New #4

    Thanks guys!

    gregrocker said:
    Do you recall choosing the Win7 installation media (DVD, flash stick, etc) as a UEFI device in the BIOS Boot menu or Boot priority settings?
    No, but anything is possible.

    gregrocker said:
    If not rightclick on the Disk Mgmt panel there that says Disk0 to see if it offers to "Convert to MBR" as shown below which will confirm it is now formatted as a GPT disk and therefore a UEFI install. Do not convert the disk!
    The "Convert to MBR" option is greyed out.

    The problem here, is that I can not successfully make an Acronis back up image of this new install. I can of my older install - the one that has a single partition listed in Disk Mgmt, but not the new one that has this EFI partition.

    I am just going to go ahead and get rid of both partitions, reformat, and redo the install.

    Thanks for the help :)
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  7. ThrashZone
    Posts : 20,583
    Win-7-Pro64bit 7-H-Prem-64bit
       New #5

    Windows is more than capable of making a system image with the system reserved partition :/
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  8. gregrocker
    Posts : 50,642
       New #6

    Why reinstall? Is there a performance problem? You know that it is perfectly normal to have a small boot partition, correct? If you look at it with Partition Wizard you should see another hidden boot partition issued with UEFI too. These are normal. If your BIOS features include UEFI than I would install to it to benefit from the latest technology. UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with - Windows 7 Forums

    If you don't want UEFI, then enable CSM or Legacy BIOS in BIOS setup, boot the installation media as a Legacy (non-UEFI) device, then delete all partitions during the booted install when you get to the Drive Selection screen, creating and formatting any partitions you have in mind or just clicking Next to let the installer do it for you:

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