Drivers/Hardware :: Can Remove EFI Partition From Non System Disk
Aug 17, 2015
I have a drive that I want to use as a backup drive for a Windows 10 machine. The problem is the old drive has a boot partition on it that is making Windows 10 go nuts every time I plug it in. If I wait until after the machine boots and then plug it in via USB adapter then I can get to the files but I want to install it inside the machine permanently.A photo of the Disk Manager is below. How do I (or should I) remove that EFI System Partition? The Disk Manager won't let me do it.
I originally started with a HDD with windows installed on it and data in anther partition on the drive, then got a SSD and moved the windows partition onto it,
my drives and partitions look like this:
I'm not sure if to remove the old SYSTEM partition or not, and if the SSD needs one also, My boot is also a lot slower on windows 10
I was in the process of updating several sata controllers and chipset drivers. I also installed a new USB 3.0 hub and was in the process of moving around several devices between ports. I had a problem with my keyboard which uses USB 2.0 as a connector but I would recieve a "Unknown USB Device (Port Reset Failed)" code 43 on every port on the USB 3.0 Hub. I finally gave up and put the keyboard back into the 2.0 ports on my motherboard. When I finally fixed everything. I realized my DVD drive was not working. I had to reconnect the SATA cables because it got disconnected while I was moving my PC around. Upon the last restart of my PC.
I checked Disk Managment and noticed lots of system reserved partitions and drives which were not there before. What happened but I think updating several drivers and the combination of reinstalling USB ports via device manager or the optical drive being reconnected may have messed up how windows used to have system reserves as partitions. I only had one visible system reserved drive before, now I have 2 visible and lettered system reserved drives.
I also have a unknown partition at the top of the list, I cannot right click that partition and select any options. The only option in my context menu which brings me a link to Overview of Disk Management
I also had my video quick access as my DVD optical drive when I restarted. I have fixed this issue by changing my quick access links back to their proper folders and it removed the duplicate Videos Icon. My quick access links were remapped to the G: drive (CD Drive), they were usually on the F: drive. Why Windows did that during my driver updates and restarts.
I have only provided the above information to know what the unknown partition is and why I cannot modify or remove it. It's the recovery partition of the C: Drive. The System Reserved E: Drive, System Reserved D: Drive are both considered primary partitions.
So I recently formatted my Windows 8.1 system and installed Windows 10. But it seems that the setup decided to set my System parition to a separate HDD (G: ) and put the bootmgr and all the boot files there, instead of using the left-over 350MB System Reserved partition on my primary SSD that Windows 8.1 had used. So of course now if I removed that disk, I wouldn't be able to boot anymore.
So what'll be the best way to move all of the boot files and system partition setting back to my old 350MB System Reserved partition? Will I need to disconnect all the other drives and do a repair install of Windows 10? Or can I manually move the files and partition settings over? The old partition is still marked as Active, so maybe I can just move all the Boot related files from G: to the 350MB partition and it'll just work? Maybe mark G: as INACTIVE too
I have recently built my own PC. During the initial setup process my friend create a partition on my ssd. I would like to remove the partition without losing anything.
I have a 250 GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. My OS and personal data is on the SSD. I want to keep everything where it is at or at least be able to put it back.
is there any way to move EVERYTHING to my HDD, clean the SSD, then move it back.
I have a two laptops with Windows 10 x64. Recently I noticed new partition with next available letter. Size is 128mb and it can't be accessed. I checked in Disk Management but this partition is not listed there as per the below screen:
I used MiniTool Partition Wizard and managed to see details about this partition.
I tried Diskpart to remove Drive Letter but no luck:
This happened at the same time on my two HP laptops but not sure what could cause it. Maybe some Windows update? I do not remember installing any new apps. I would like to remove this disk from the list of available disks.
Somehow unintentionally I created a dynamic disk partition on what was my boot drive but is now intended to be my documents and pictures folder drive.
How do I get rid of the first dynamic partition and change it to a normal partition to store my 'Documents" & "Pictures" folders for the new Win 10 Pro drive C:
Windows (Drive C ) is running fine.
trying to set the default location for Pictures and Documents to the original (C) now drive (D)...want only 2 partitions when fixed - "Documents" and "Pictures"
I had 2 useless partitions, one at the very beginning of my HD and the second at the very end. My setup is GPT Basic btw.
I would like to know, using MiniTool Partition Wizard version 9.1, if it is possible to merge these former partitions (now 'unallocated' space) into the Windows partition (C??
I right clicked on both of the unallocated space 'partitions' but any operations (namely, move) was greyed out.
I would like to clean up the disk layout (even if we are talking about only 1 GB. of space)
I have a configuration where win 10 is installed on SSD but the Users folder is on a dynamic disk on HDD and the linking is made by a hard junction link from C: to D. I have removed paging on D as well as protection. Hence, I am able to remove all volumes of the dynamic disk and convert it back to a basic disk and format it.The problem is that I would like to keep all my installed programs (and settings, preferably). I have copied the Users directory to an external disk and copied them back to D after conversion. This seems to lead to a nonfunctional situation where I cannot even add a new user and most programs (even not all windows tools) do not work.What would be the best approach to avoid reinstalling the programs and to keep existing users?
I have my system built but when i try to install windows 10 onto my kingston 120gb ssd its stops on 6% and it says in the bottom left that windows cant be installed to this disk the selected disk is of the GPT partition style i have never installed windows before...
I found out that the hard disk is 100% utilized. In Task Manager, the process that utilizes the disk the most is ESET Service. If I open Resource Monitor there are many instances of the System process that are reading the disk, not writing it. I have two partitions on my disk - one for the system and the other one for data; the extensive disk reading is done for Pictures (I assigned a folder with pictures, about 140 GB in size, to the system My Pictures folder) on the data partition.
I am not running any tests in the ESET Endpoint Antivirus software and it seems to me that the high disk activity starts when I do not do anything and just e.g. browse Internet or look at something. So, it feels like Windows is doing something, but what it is and how I can influence it. If it were disk optimizations I think I should see also disk writes, not only reads. Could it be that Windows is doing something automatic with Pictures, Documents, etc.?
I wonder what is going on - I dislike the fact that something is going on with the hard disk, making is 100% utilized and making other work very slow and non-responsive.
Trying a Windows install on a Server box with 4 HDD's installed. This server also allows boot from a Micro SD card. I've got a 64GB micro SD card loaded as well.
Fails when trying to create any partition on any of the HDD's. Works if I temporarily remove one HDD or take out the 64GB internal micro SD card.
I Get a message "Windows cannot create partition on selected Disk" - even when totally empty. It doesn't matter if GPT or MBR disks either.
Seems that if you want to install a non server version of Windows (i.e Windows 10 Pro for example) 4 HDD's is the limit (a micro SD card counts as an HDD).
If I install Esxi on the SD card then no prob creating Windows VM's without removing HDD's.
I think after w10 is installed you can add more HDD's.
I don't want to lose my Windows 7 so I have Windows 2000 Full, Vista upgrade, Windows 7 upgrade, Windows 8 upgrade, so I figure I somehow put in Windows 8 upgrade however I get a message saying "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style" I think I know why is because I had the BATA Windows 10 on this disk and I can't delete 2 of the partitions.
Asus laptop with 8.1 installed. One disk, 2 partitions. I've installed 10 a number of times, VM and dual boot on desktop.
Went to install 10, dual boot. When I got to picking the partition, said "Cannot be installed, selected disk is of the MBR partition type."
Installed my Aomei Partition Assistant and changed to Disk to GPT. Now when I go to select the disk, it says "Cannot be installed, selected disk is of the GPT partition type.
I could not load a disk with OS software and received this error message. "Disk has MBR Partition Table. On EFI Systems, Windows Can Only Be Installed On GPT Disks".
Running windows 10, due to some personal reasons want to change my dynamic disk to a basic disk... But the option for the same is greyed out in Disk Management.
Last night I wiped out my ASUS T100 tablet to clean install TH2. But there is a 7GB Recovery partition from Windows 8.1 that I can't get rid off using Diskpart.
So I've tried multiple different installations of windows 10 on my hp envy 17 (no slug of a machine, i5-12gb ram etc) Stretching back to the previews. I'm also running windows 7 on the laptop in a dual boot situation. The disk has a built in HP recovery partition from the original windows 8 that came with it. I had split the HDD and started dual booting windows 7 as my main OS, but left the other Win 8 OS alone.
When I went to install windows 10 to a new partition from the start, the system became almost unusable. Hanging every few seconds, sometimes taking 1-2 minutes just to write a short series of words as each key press would take ages to register or the mouse wouldn't move. All the troubleshooting showed no particular reason. The only odd standout would be that the disc usage would keep spiking to 99-100% every time, and almost each one of those times it happened as I watched in the task manager/performance manager, i'd be seeing an item at the top usage showing fraction of the normal top write/read speed, something like 1.5mb/s....even with that low a transfer rate, it just kept reporting the disc was at 100% usage while it proceeded to freeze for the next 10 seconds-1 min+.
So I tried re-installing using different methods, different builds, tweaking the paging file and fastboot settings as recommended. Eventually, I figured maybe I'd have more luck booting up the existing windows 8 partition and doing the "get windows 10" upgrade root over the dvd/usb upgrades and clean installs route I had tried. No luck. Marginally better. I've already tried getting proper drivers/upgrades. I've tweaked settings and tested the disc in multiple ways. No errors or issues. If I restarted an install, I never just reinstalled over top, it was wiped to rule out cross contamination. One thing I haven't covered yet is this.
During the installs, I originally had issues with being told I couldn't install to "this gpt partition" That would be fixed by using rufus to make the bootable usb with the file structure. When I try these installs/win 10 logins, it's been either as regular uefi boot mode OR legacy mode (windows 7 support) So i've ruled out the boot mode as a source...I think. A few times I received a message about the partitions not being in the optimal/preffered order by the windows 10 installer. After having read about the issue at the directed ms link, it sounds like it could be an issue. I include the following screen shot of the partition manager, as I don't want to mess with the wrong partitions. Windows 10 is C drive in this case. The partitions before are either recovery or boot partitions. For what system/os
I have to do an install of Windows 10. It was only a few days ago I just installed to a hdd. The hdd is clearly screwed at a certain point. I copied a load of stuff to it and it is now totally locked into doing something. Whatever it is trying to figure out - I have seen it do it before. Just to cut a long story short - I am about to install win10 to a new drive. ssd incidentally.
do I need to completely format over that disk partition with win 10 on it before doing a new install on the new drive? What I am asking is whether it will refuse to license it if it detects another win10 on the system. Just that portion of the disk is screwed but I have stuff on different parts of that disk that are fine... They can stay. I will simply consider that partition out of bounds from now on.
I've been considering shrinking my one disk (disk 0) to create another volume, a data partition, but I'm still not clear what happens in the event that I want to refresh, reset or clean install Windows 10 in the future. Would the data partition remain or, as I thought I read, Windows will format the entire disk?
It seems as though Windows 10 can add some, but not necessarily all new or detected partitions to an aggregate capacity under the label This PC (C: ) Even if the partitions are empty NTFS or RAW (inc. Linux Swap?) also include them as usage: 'System & reserved.' I haven't able to discern a pattern of how Windows 10 determines if a new or empty formatted partition will be added to the aggregate Storage summary. At best it's confusing, and appears to be broken.
Further: deleting some partitions, or shutting down, unplugging disks and rebooting does not necessarily alter the reported aggregate that is shown for This PC (C: ) i.e. You would expect removing all drives and partitions to restore This PC (C: ) status to show only the Windows partition capacity - it doesn't and it continues to show 100s extra GB that are no longer present on the PC.
E.g. on my previous install I was seeing an impossible 239GB 'system & reserved' with 323GB 'capacity.'
My system:
Windows 10 & 7 partitions each = 100GBWindows disk total capacity = 223GBOther disks, mix of NTFS, EXT4 (Mint 17, /home) Swap (Linux)
N.B. I've tried this a couple of ways with fresh installs on clean disks and see the same result. It doesn't make a difference if Windows 10 or Windows 7 is installed first. I have made the partition order:
recovery|efi|msr|windows|other
Other things that make no difference:
Removing or assigning new disk lettersFor both Windows 10 and Windows 7:
Hibernation is disabled (from admin cmd terminal)Page-file management to be on C: only (other disks set to none)
At the moment I am unsure if this is merely a 'cosmetic' issue or something that might cause more serious functionality problems later e.g. not being able to install since Windows incorrectly thinks a drive or partitions are used or reserved.
I tried to access a laptop hard disk using an adapter from a laptop. Once or twice It was successful but last time I checked it showed me files and folders with unreadable characters and it's partitions are also gone. When I checked its format I found out that it has changed from NTFS to FAT32.
When I try to open any file or folder it gives an error message saying it's not accessible and the filename or directory name is incorrect. I tried reading another hard disk to see if it's something to do with my adapter but they are all working fine. What happened or to recover the data unharmed?.
i got the windows 10 upgrade from windows update, downloaded it and installed it. went to microsoft website downloaded windows 10 to put onto a usb drive. before performing a clean install i partitioned my drive and dropped around 230gb of stuff on it (967gb total drive, partitioned 280). when i tried to format the drive i encountered this issue
"windows cannot be installed to the disk. the selected disk has an mbr partition table. on efi systems, windows can only be installed to gpt disks.".
I don't know if the problem is my hdd or my usb drive or my bios. i tried deleting the partition and then pressing new but i continue to get the same error. i tried looking around but i cant make any sense of the posts with this error being solved. one of the posts says to change usb efi to gpt in bios but i dont think that option is in my bios (i can post a picture of bios if needed). another option is to clean the entire disk with cmd but i dont want to lose the other partition.
I have a fat32 100mb system partition in my windows disk management it's also showing in aomei partition assistant file system fat32, capacity 100mb, used space 28.75 mb free space 71.25 mb flag is gpt,efi status is system. Installed windows 10 from a usb flash drive and I could not convert from efi to gpt or something like that so I deleted the windows partition which is my c drive (ssd) and that's when I got this showing up in windows.
Can I copy the boot files to the c drive and just deleted this system partition and use the partition software to merge the space back to the c drive so I can use it. Or do I have to reformat and start all over again? I deleted the c drive partition that windows was on and created a new one and it created reserved space and recovery space which I have got ride of and deleted and merged the unallocated space for both back to the c drive.
I hesitate about doing anything with this partition until I'm sure of what I'm doing so that My computer will still boot up. I can only boot into windows 10 from the windows boot manager and not straight from the cdrive the primary (SSD).
Installed a Samsung SSD on my Asus CM6730-06 desktop running Win7. the Win7 OS was cloned from the Asus Pc to Samsung SSD. Windows 7 runs great off the SSD. Got a Windows 10 upgrade notice and received an automatic download of Win10 but when it tries to install I get the message "Windows 10 couldn't be installed". "We couldn't update the system reserved partition". I would like to upgrade to Win10 on this pc.
