Missing EFI Partition in Windows 10 – Solved
Scenario
My EFI partition is missing in Windows 10 computer, I want to get it back. However, I tried several ways online but still failed. Can someone show detailed steps to fix this issue? Thanks a lot.
EFI partition overview
The EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) system partition, often known as the ESP (EFI system partition), is a partition on a data storage device that is used by computers adhering to the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface. When a computer is booted, UEFI firmware loads files stored on the Extensible System Partition to start installed operating systems and various utilities.
Thus, the EFI partition only appears on the GPT system disk. If the EFI partition missing or being damaged, Windows will fail to boot.
How to fix the missing EFI partition in Windows 10?
When you notice there is no EFI Partition or the EFI partition is missing, you may accidentally delete it. You can try to recover the EFI partition using a partition recovery tool or recreate the EFI partition in Windows 10 with diskpart.
Method 1. Recover EFI partition with Qiling Disk Master
Qiling Disk Master Professional is a great partition recovery software. With the help of it, you can recover deleted or lost partitions easily. This software can be applied in Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP/Visa. And if your PC is running with the Server system, you can turn to the Server Edition. Let’s see how to recover missing EFI partition in Windows 10.
Step 1. Install Qiling Disk Master and open this tool. If you cannot boot your computer, you need to create a bootable disk in a running computer with Qiling Disk Master and boot the computer from the bootable disk.
Step 2. At the main interface of Qiling Disk Master, click Disk management > Partition Recovery on the main interface. Select the disk which has no EFI partition and click Next.
Step 3. At the next page, select a search rang and click Proceed.
Step 4. Select the deleted boot partition in the following list and click Recovery. For security, you can click Explore files in the selected partition and view files to confirm.
Method 2. Recreate EFI partition
If you cannot recover EFI partition, you need to create an EFI partition and then install EFI boot loader to make the hard drive bootable.
Step 1. Boot your computer from a Windows installation disc or recovery disk. Press Shift+F10 in the setup to enter command prompt window.
Step 2. Run the commands below to shrink a partition to get unallocated space.
•Diskpart
•List disk
•Select disk X (X represents the disk number of the disk that needs an EFI partition)
•List partition
•Select partition N (N represents the partition number of the partition that needs shrinking)
•Shrink desired=500 (shrink the partition by 500MB)
Step 3. Then you can create an EFI partition using unallocated space with the command below:
• create partition efi
• format fs=fat32 quick
• assign letter=Y• exit (exit diskpart.exe)
Step 4. After those two partitions have been successfully created, use the commands below to install the boot loader and other applications needed.
• bcdboot C:\windows /s Y:
Step 5. Reboot your computer to see if it is fixed.
Conclusion
If your computer fails to boot because of missing the EFI partition in Windows 10, you can either try to recover EFI partition with Qiling Disk Master or recreate the EFI partition with diskpart. After getting your Windows system back as before, you’d better make a system backup. If anything bad happens to the computer, you can restore your computer to the previous good state. In addition, you can also restore lost data.
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