How to remove EFI partitions on Mac OS. How to remove an EFI partition from a USB drive How to remove an encrypted efi partition in windows 7
The situation is as follows. Every time we try to install the UEFI operating system on Hackintosh or Apple computers, it creates an EFI partition on the selected partition of the disk, which will subsequently be displayed in the BIOS. It doesn’t matter whether you installed Windows on your Hackintosh or not - the partition has already been created.
EFI partitions are created by:
- OS X loaders for Hackintosh;
- Windows with UEFI installation;
- Linux with UEFI installation;
Since almost all are modern motherboards With UEFI bios, then almost everyone is susceptible to this phenomenon. I tried to install Windows several times without success, which created a number of EFI sub-partitions on each partition. In the list you can see 3 EFI NO NAME sections, which I need to delete.
And everything would be fine, well, just think, they hang in the BIOS list and hang, but the difficulty was as follows. I was left with an unmarked space on the disk that, due to these EFI subpartitions, did not want to be attached to the disk.
I would like to note that you can format partitions to which EFI is attached in a Mac as many times as you like - it will not bring any result. Even when you reformat to NTFS, the partitions remain - you can see this in the growing list in the BIOS with each installation from UEFI, and subsequently it becomes increasingly difficult for the BIOS to determine the correct option from the boot list and instead of starting the system we see a black screen, the same reaction It may also be when calling up the settings of the BIOS itself and the BOOT MENU.
I searched the Internet for a long time on this issue, but unfortunately I never found any working answer!
- Many people suggest formatting to NTFS, but this does not solve the issue - Windows does not erase EFI; they continue to appear in the list;
- They write to do a lot of things through the terminal, but unfortunately that doesn’t work either.
- One of the torrents even offers to remove it using R-Studio. It actually sees all partitions, but does not delete anything.
Quit Disk Utility if it is open! Enter the line into the terminal:
defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1
This line will enable the Debug menu item
But in fact, everything is on the surface and you just had to look through the disk utility menu. Let's move on to the solution.
To complete the task, we need the good old disk utility, which is available before 10.9 Mavericks; Yosemite and El Capitan simply don’t have it, and the function we need is cut out from the new utility.
But enthusiasts helped us and the old disk utility is now available to us. Download old disk utility for Yosemite and El Capitan
Download, transfer the utility to programs and launch. On this moment There are no hidden partitions in the sidebar, even if we mount them using EFI Mounter-v2.app, we will not be able to edit or delete them.
Let's move on to top panel disk utility settings -> Debug -> And check “Show every partition”, this is the function that is responsible for showing hidden partitions.
After which we show hidden sections. For me these sections were called NO NAME, you may have noticed in the upper screenshots. that there were 3 of them. How to delete!
Select the section -> go to the Erase tab and format it into the usual “Mac OS Extended (journaled)”, after which the section will be available for editing. We repeat the operation for other unnecessary sections.
But don’t even think about deleting the topmost partition, which is signed by EFI - this is the Mac OS bootloader, without it the system will not start. If you still deleted it before turning it off, be sure to install it again.
After this, select all hard disk -> go to the tab, select unnecessary partitions and press minus “-” to delete them.
Then we free any of the partitions hard drive, format it, delete it by the same click on the minus sign. After all that has been done, click “+” and create a new partition; this sequence will help to attach all unallocated hard disk space to the partition.
As a result, we again type in the terminal diskutil list to show all partitions on your hard drive.
As you can see, the issue has been resolved. The HDD has only one most important EFI partition with a bootloader. Entries in the BIOS from the list of bootloaders are also deleted.
I came across a strange hard drive, it seemed like it was Linux or MacOS. I deleted all the partitions, but one, standard means(Disk Utility and Disk Management) could not reach 200 meters.
IN context menu paragraph Delete volume...inactive.
Delete an encrypted EFI partition in Windows 7 Can console program diskpart.
1. Launch cmd as administrator
2. Enter in cmd – diskpart. Will start diskpart in a new window
list disk – look at the list of disks
select disk # – select required disk. Instead of # we indicate the disk number
clean – removes all partitions or volumes on the disk
list partition – checks that all partitions have been deleted
4. Check the result in Disk management.
5. All partitions have been deleted.
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Sometimes when you plug in a USB drive it shows EFI and FAT32/NTFS. It's strange that if your USB is in this state, it's better to fix the format before using it to transfer data, as people might get confused about all the two new partitions showing up on their PC.
But Windows" Disk management does not allow you to delete this section. When you go to Disk Management by right-clicking on the problematic USB drive, you will find that all the options are greyed out. You can't delete volumes, and you can't "Shrink Volume" or "Expand Volume" to merge with other partitions.
It's OK. There is another way: command line DiskPart to help.
Run command line as Administrator> type
DiskPart
Then you want to list all the drives connected to your computer, enter the following command: DiskPart
List of disks
It displays all the drives on your system. Find your USB drive and select the drive
Select drive x (drive #)
Here is my USB drive showing as Disk 2, so for me I enter " select disk 2", Yours may be different.
Then enter
Clean
To completely erase the disk. It is normal if sometimes the DiskPart report finds an error: The system cannot find the specified file. Additional information see the system event log.
As long as Disk Management shows all unallocated data for the USB drive, you have successfully destroyed the USB drive. This time it's time to prepare for reformatting.
Depending on your USB needs, FAT32 is a common universal format that is suitable for storing files on OS platforms.
That's all. Now your USB will no longer show two partitions when connected to a PC. You have successfully removed the EFI partition.
Hello! Windows 8.1 won’t boot on a laptop with a UEFI BIOS and I can’t do anything. When loading, an error appears on the screen File:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD... I studied all the Internet articles on this topic, but in my case nothing helps.
What have I done?
- Booted from installation disk Windows 8.1 and searched for the installed operating system with the command bootrec /RebuildBcd, error " Scanning installed systems Windows completed successfully. Total number of detected Windows systems: 0»
- Deleted a partition (300 MB), an encrypted (EFI) system partition containing all files Windows boot loader 8.1 team del vol, then applied Automatic Boot Recovery, the system re-creates this partition, but does not boot. I made this section active in the command line, which also did not help.
- Also formatted the same partition (300 MB) Encrypted (EFI) with the command format fs=FAT3 and created it again.
- I tried to write a new download store for Windows 8.1 with the command bcdboot.exe C:\Windows, where (C:) is the partition with the operating system installed Windows system 8.1 and I get the error againFailure to copy download files.
I entered commands that were successful, but Windows did not load.
bootrec /FixMbr
bootrec /FixBoot
I don’t know what else to do or how to restore the Windows 8.1 bootloader. Maybe you can give me some advice?
Hello friends! My name is Vladimir and I will answer this question.
If your Windows 8.1 does not boot and you have used all available tools to restore the bootloader, then you can delete the 300 MB encrypted (EFI) system partition, as well as the 128 MB MSR partition, that is responsible for booting the system and create them again.
In Disk Management you can only see encrypted (EFI) system partition 300 MB, MSR partition 128 MB visible only in the command line when entering the command"lis par".
Note: If you do not have experience, do not perform this operation unless necessary, use other methods from the about section first. If you want to experiment on a working laptop, then do not start working without first creating a backup copy of these partitions, but rather create a .
We will delete and recreate partitions:
1. Section (400 MB) containing the environment Windows recovery 8.1 (you can get rid of this section altogether and, if necessary, use the recovery environment located on the bootable media with Win 8.1).
2. Section (300 MB), encrypted (EFI) system partition containing all Windows 8.1 boot loader files.
3. Service partition MSR (Microsoft System Reserved) 128 MB, required for GPT disk partitioning.
We boot the laptop from and in the initial system installation window press the keyboard shortcut Shift + F10,
window opens command line, enter the commands:
diskpart
lis dis (lists physical disks).
sel dis 0 (select HDD laptop 931 GB, and the second drive 14 GB - bootable flash drive Windows 8.1).
lis par (shows all partitions of the selected disk, we will delete the first three partitions).
sel par 1 (select the first section
del par override (delete the partition, to delete the ESP and MSR partition or the laptop OEM partition, you must specify the override parameter)
sel par 2
del par override
sel par 3
del par override
That's it, we deleted all three hidden sections.
Now, if we select a disk and enter the lis par command, we will see only two partitions on the laptop’s hard drive:
Section 4 - installed Windows 8.1
Partition 5 is a hidden recovery partition with factory settings.
We create a new encrypted (EFI) system partition of 300 MB, as well as a 128 MB MSR partition
Enter the commands:
diskpart
lis dis (display a list of disks).
sel dis 0 (select the laptop hard drive).
create par efi size=300 (create an encrypted (EFI) system partition of 300 MB).
format fs=fat32 (format it to the FAT32 file system).
In this article, we will show you how to manually recover an accidentally deleted bootloader. Windows partition on a UEFI system. Initially, the article described my experience in restoring a bootable EFI partition on Windows 7, but the article is also relevant for modern operating systems Microsoft (from Windows 7 to Windows 10). It has helped me out more than once after accidentally formatting or deleting an EFI partition in Windows 10. In this article we will show you a simple way to manually recreate bootable EFI and MSR partitions in Windows.
So, let's assume that somehow accidentally (or not so accidentally, for example, when trying) the EFI boot partition on a UEFI system (not BIOS) was deleted or formatted, as a result of which Windows 10 / 8.1 / 7 stopped booting, cyclically asking to select boot device (Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected). Let's figure out whether it is possible to restore Windows functionality when deleting the partition with Boot Manager without reinstalling the system.
Warning. The instructions assume working with disk partitions and are not intended for beginners. If you misinterpret commands, you may accidentally delete all data on your hard drive. It is also highly recommended to create backup copy important data on a separate medium.
Partition structure on a GPT disk
Let's look at what the partition table of a bootable hard drive with GPT markup should look like. At a minimum, the following sections should be present:
- EFI system partition (EFI System Partition or ESP - Extensible Firmware Interface) - 100 MB (partition type - EFI).
- Microsoft backup partition – 128 MB (partition type - MSR).
- The main Windows partition is the partition with Windows.
This is exactly the minimum configuration. These partitions are created by Windows Installer when installing the system on an unpartitioned disk. PC manufacturers or users themselves can additionally create their own partitions containing, for example, the Windows recovery environment in a file winre.wim(), a partition with a backup system image from the manufacturer (allows you to roll back to original state computer), user partitions, etc.
EFI partition with the Fat32 file system is required on disks with GPT partitioning on UEFI systems. This partition, similar to the System Reserved partition on disks with MSR partitioning, stores the boot configuration storage (BCD) and a number of files necessary to boot Windows. When the computer boots, the UEFI environment loads the boot loader from the EFI partition (ESP) (EFI\Microsoft\Boot\ bootmgfw.efi) and transfers control to him. If this partition is deleted, the OS cannot be booted.
MSRchapter on a GPT disk it is used to simplify partition management and is used for utility operations (for example, when converting a disk from a simple to a dynamic one). This is a backup partition and does not have a partition code assigned to it. User data cannot be stored on this partition. In Windows 10, the MSR partition size is only 16 MB (in Windows 8.1, the MSR partition size is 128 MB), file system– NTFS.
Manually creating EFI and MSR partitions on a GPT disk
Because the system does not boot correctly, we will need an installation disk with Windows 10 (Win 8 or 7) or any other boot disk. So, boot from the installation disk and press the key combination on the installation start screen Shift+F10 . A command prompt window should open:
Let's launch the disk and partition management utility:
Let's display a list hard drives in the system (in this example there is only one, disk 0 . Asterisk ( * ) in the Gpt column means that the disk uses a GPT partition table).
Let's select this disk:
Let's display a list of partitions on the disk:
In our example, there are only 2 partitions left in the system:
- MSR partition - 128 MB
- Windows system partition – 9 GB
As we can see, the EFI partition is missing (deleted).
Our task is to delete the remaining MSR partition so that at least 228 MB remain unallocated on the disk free space(for MSR and EFI partitions). You can delete the remaining partition using graphical GParted or directly from the command line (that’s exactly what we’ll do).
Select the partition to delete:
Select partition 1
And delete it:
Delete partition override
Let's make sure that only the Windows partition remains:
Now we can manually recreate the EFI and MSR partitions. To do this in context diskpart utilities run the commands sequentially:
Select a disk:
create partition efi size=100
Make sure that the 100 MB partition is selected (the asterisk opposite the Partition 1 line):
list partition
select partition 1
format quick fs=fat32 label="System"
assign letter=G
create partition msr size=128
list partition
list vol
In our case, the Windows partition is already assigned a drive letter C:, if this is not the case, assign a letter to it as follows:
select vol 1
assign letter=C
exit
Repairing EFI bootloader and BCD in Windows
Once you have created the minimum disk partition structure for the UEFI system, you can proceed to copying the EFI boot files to disk and creating a bootloader configuration file (BCD).
Let's copy the EFI environment files from the directory of your disk where your Windows is installed:
mkdir G:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot
xcopy /s C:\Windows\Boot\EFI\*.* G:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot
Let's recreate the Windows 10/7 bootloader configuration:
g:
cd EFI\Microsoft\Boot
bcdedit /createstore BCD
bcdedit /store BCD /create (bootmgr) /d “Windows Boot Manager”
bcdedit /store BCD /create /d “Windows 7” /application osloader
You can replace the inscription “My Windows 10” with any other one.
Advice. If only the EFI environment files were damaged on the EFI partition, but the partition itself remained in place, you can skip the process of rebuilding partitions using diskpart. Although in most cases it is enough to restore the bootloader according to the article. You can manually recreate the BCD on regular MBR+BIOS systems.
The command returns the GUID of the created entry; in the next command, this GUID must be substituted instead of (your_guid).
bcdedit /store BCD /set (bootmgr) default (your_guid)
bcdedit /store BCD /set (bootmgr) path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
bcdedit /store BCD /set (bootmgr) displayorder (default)
Further commands are executed in the context (default):
bcdedit /store BCD /set (default) device partition=c:
bcdedit /store BCD /set (default) osdevice partition=c:
bcdedit /store BCD /set (default) path \Windows\System32\winload.efi
bcdedit /store BCD /set (default) systemroot \Windows
exit
We reboot the computer... In our case, it did not boot the first time, we had to additionally dance with a tambourine:
- Turn off the power to the PC.
- Disconnect (physically) the hard drive.
- We turn on the PC, wait for the boot error window to appear, and turn it off again.
- We connect the disk back.
Then in our case (testing was carried out on) we had to add a new boot menu item by selecting the file EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgrfw.efi on the EFI partition.
In some UEFI menus, by analogy, you need to change the priority of boot partitions.
After all the above manipulations, Windows should boot correctly.
