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Windows OS Hub / Windows 10 / How to Restore Deleted EFI Boot Partition in Windows 10/7
Suppose that the EFI boot partition on your UEFI (non-BIOS) system was accidentally deleted or formatted (for example,
when you tried to remove OEM recovery partition), and as a result Windows 10 (8.1 / 7) doesn’t boot constantly offering to
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select the boot device (Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected). Is it possible to restore the
Windows performance when removing the Boot Manager partition without reinstalling the system?
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Warning. This guide implements working with disk partitions and is not recommended for beginners. If you Group Policies
interpret the commands wrongly, you can accidentally delete all data on your hard disk. It is also strongly
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recommended to back up important data on a separate media.
Windows 10
Windows 8
Contents:
Windows 7
GPT Partition Structure
How to Manually Create EFI and MSR partition on GPT-based HDD Windows Server 2016
Consider how the partition table on the bootable hard disk with GUID partition table (GPT) on the UEFI system should look
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like. You should have at least the following partitions:
MS Office
EFI System Partition or ESP (Extensible Firmware Interface) — 100 MB (partition type — EFI).
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Recovery Environment (Windows RE) in the winre.wim file, a partition with the system image backup provided by the
manufacturer (allows to roll back to the default state of the system), user partitions, etc.
Installing a Free Let’s
The EFI partition with the FAT32 file system is a mandatory partition on GPT disks on UEFI systems. This partition, similar Encrypt TLS/SSL Certificate
to the System Reserved partition on drives with MFT partition table, stores the boot configuration store (BCD) and a number on IIS Web Server / RDS
of files needed for Windows boot. When the computer boots, the UEFI environment loads the bootloader December 31, 2019
(EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi) from the EFI (ESP) partition and transfers control to it. If this partition is deleted,
Windows can’t boot correctly.
Using PowerShell to View
and Change BIOS Settings
The MSR partition on the GPT disk is used to simplify partition management and is used for service operations (for
December 30, 2019
example, when converting a disk from simple to dynamic). This is a backup partition that does not have a partition code
assigned. This partition can’t store user data. In Windows 10, the size of the MSR partition is only 16 MB (in Windows 8.1 the
size of the MSR partition is 128 MB), the file system is NTFS.
Windows 7: End of Support
Notifications, Extended
Tip. To install Windows on computers with UEFI you will need an original DVD or a specially prepared bootable USB Security Updates Program
December 27, 2019
flash drive with Windows 7, Windows 8 / Windows Server 2012 or Windows 10 / Server 2016.
Get-MessageTrackingLog:
Search Message Tracking
Logs on Exchange Server
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Diskpart
Display the list of hard disks in the system (in our example, there is only one disk, disk 0. The asterisk in the GPT column
means that it uses the GUID partition table).
list disk
Select disk 0
List partition
As you can see, the EFI partition is missing (it has been deleted).
Our task is to remove the remaining MSR partition so that we have at least 228 MB of unallocated space on the drive (for
MSR and EFI partitions). You can remove this partition using the graphical Gparted or directly from the command prompt
(we’ll choose the last variant).
Important! Please, be extremely attentive here and do not accidentally delete Windows partition or partitions
Select partition 1
And delete it
List partition
Now you can re-create EFI and MSR partitions manually. To do it, run these commands in diskpart context one by one.
select disk 0
Make sure that the 100 MB partition (an asterisk in front of the Partition 1) is selected:
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, disk letter C: is already assigned to our Windows partition. Otherwise, assign the drive letter to it as follows:
select vol 1
assign letter=C
exit
Copy the EFI environment files from the directory of the installed Windows 10:
mkdir G:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot
g:
cd EFI\Microsoft\Boot
bcdedit /createstore BCD
bcdedit /store BCD /create {bootmgr} /d “Windows Boot Manager”
bcdedit /store BCD /create /d “My Windows 10” /application osloader
You can replace the caption “My Windows 10” for any other.
Tip. If only EFI files were damaged on the EFI partition and the partition itself was not deleted, you can skip the
process of recreating partitions using diskpart. Although in most cases it is enough to repair the EFI bootloader in
Windows 10 / 8.1. You can manually recreate the BCD on an MBR+BIOS system using this article.
The command returns the GUID of the created record, in the next command put this GUID instead of {your_guid}.
Restart your computer… In our case it didn’t boot from the first time. Try the following:
Turn your PC on, wait till the boot error window appears and turn it off again.
Then in our case (the test took place on the VMWare virtual machine with UEFI system) we had to add a new item to the
boot menu by selecting EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgrfw.efi on the EFI partition.
In some UEFI menus, by analogy, you need to change the priority of the boot partitions.
Tip. If it doesn’t work, it is recommended to make sure that only EFI partition has the boot flag. You can do it using
GParted LiveCD.
67 comments 13
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67 COMMENTS
CAIO Reply
May 10, 2016 - 2:05 pm
Thank you very much!!!!!! Thats the only solution for me in the entire internet!!!!
Usually I almost never comment on guides, but this time, you just saved my Windows! It was very detailed,
telling you each and every step you have to take. I was installing Arch and I accidentally formatted my EFI
partition of Windows 10. I used up the whole day trying to find out how to fix this, and after I almost gave up, I
saw your article, followed it and it worked like a charm!
Thank you so much for the help, and please keep making guides like these
ADMIN Reply
May 19, 2016 - 7:31 am
DANNY Reply
June 22, 2016 - 7:41 pm
Thank you very much!!! This saved me a lot of time, because a reinstall isn’t necessary anymore!
This is also working perfect for Win10.
LECHUP Reply
July 11, 2016 - 5:14 pm
Thanks man!
I’ve moved partitions from mbr to gpt (from 500GB to 3TB hard drive) and needed to recreate UEFI/GPT boot
partitions – only way that worked for me (just leave some space at the beginning of drive).
Just thinking if I just create those two partitions and xcopy files to boot partition, won’t it be enought to run
“startup” repair from Windows 7/8 cd and just remove that bcdedit hassle?
I’ll check it next time I will have those problems. Thanks again!
JAH_LAH@HOTMAIL.COM Reply
August 27, 2016 - 12:20 pm
Hi, and thanks for your patience in writing such a detailed solution. I’ve messed up my UEFI Win 10 partition
when migraating to a SSD disk and trying to restore dual boot. To make short a long story, I decided to delet
and rebuild UEFI partition, and I’ve got stuck at the copying files step. Whenever I try to use the {xcopy /s
C:\Windows\Boot\EFI\*.* G:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot} command, I receive a message like “failure to copy files from
source”. Everytime. This is driving me crazy. The files are there, I can see them, but I just can’t copy them. Any
thoughts will be appreciated. Thanks again.
INTERNETPERSON Reply
September 6, 2016 - 5:40 am
Jal_lah, if you’re still having trouble, you could try creating a Linux live CD or USB and boot into it. You
can then mount both the EFI partition and your Windows partition, and copy the files over.
INTERNETPERSON Reply
September 6, 2016 - 5:52 am
Thank you for the detailed guide! Exactly what I’m looking for. Do you know if there are any differences for
applying this guide to restoring a Windows 10 EFI partition? Can I just replace the third ‘bcdedit’ command with
the following?
bcdedit /store BCD /create /d “Windows 10” /application osloader
Any help would be appreciated!
STEVE Reply
September 29, 2016 - 7:53 pm
I myself had to restore a Windows 10 UEFI partition and had no issues with changing the “Windows 7”
part to “Windows 10”.
As far as I can tell, it’s really just a label so what goes in the quotes probably doesn’t matter too much.
STEVE Reply
September 29, 2016 - 7:51 pm
After a few days of frustration, I’m happy to say this guide finally resolved the issue. I had 2 UEFI partitions, 4
recovery partitions, and then 2 partitions for my OSes (Win10 and Ubuntu). After messing around with getting
rid of grub and returning the partition space back to windows, I ended up screwing up my entire boot.
And after about 2 days of scouring the internet and trying all solutions available, this is thankfully the first one
that got me back to a usable system. Great thanks to the writer(s) of this article for getting me out of a bind.
NATURELOVER Reply
November 21, 2016 - 8:32 pm
Thanks for the detailed and thorough description of the recovery process.
In the case of a dual boot system, with Windows 7 and Fedora (installed on a newly added hard disk), and
where only the Windows 7 boot is failing, would there be any concerns with following this method to recover the
Windows 7 EFI boot partition?
GEORGE Reply
February 2, 2017 - 11:57 am
M SAGHEER Reply
February 15, 2017 - 7:39 pm
hey man its really helpfull thank you so much for sharing this at least it show me a efi disk but after applying
delete Partition override cmnd i get an error saying “virtual disk server error” and delete is not allowed on
current boot, system.pagefile crashdamp or hibernation volume ……can i get a solution for that please thanks in
advance <3
VMS4EVER Reply
February 26, 2017 - 5:52 pm
A big thank you! Your write-up saved me this weekend. HP Workstation Z440, shrank windows partition and
tried with Acronis True Image (comes free with new SSD Crucial MX300) to clone HDD to SSD. But upon reboot
nothing, no OS can be found. Your method saved me.
One point. If the windows partition does not extend to the end, then upon remaking EFI and MSR partitions,
they are placed after the windows partition which I am not sure if it would work. One has to add the OFFSET
flag to create partition. For MSR the offset should be 101*1024 = 103424.
Hope this is helpful to someone else…
TJ Reply
March 19, 2017 - 3:40 am
I accidentally nuked the MSR & EFI partitions on a notebook I brought home to help a friend fix over St.
Patrick’s weekend. Almost gave up on a startup repair versus a wipe and reload after countless hours on the
internet before stumbling on your site.
My feedback based on your prescribed solution boils down to five words: Meticulous Guide with Amazing
Results.
Also works for Win10 if you stop at the boot loader instruction and then follow http://woshub.com/how-to-
repair-uefi-bootloader-in-windows-8/
PAWEL Reply
July 10, 2018 - 4:24 pm
This was amazing. I didn’t believe it could help, but you’re genious. This realy save my day.
RJRH Reply
July 30, 2018 - 11:08 pm
CAESAR Reply
July 31, 2018 - 9:30 pm
God would bless you for this fix saved me a lot of time I just had to convert to gpt before creating efi
Feel unbelievable happy right now. You know what you are doing. Thanks a lot, will have some good sleep now.
RJ Reply
December 3, 2018 - 4:54 am
Thanks a lot.
COLE Reply
December 6, 2018 - 7:23 am
You sir, just saved my butt. Week before exams, all my papers are almost done and windows decided to shit the
bed tonight. I had everything backed up to my server but it was all compressed and would take too much effort
to reinstall everything to my laptop. Excellent explanations and the only thing I can add to this guide is that
everything has to be in order, it most likely will not move on if you try something too early (I missed the
creation of the {bootmgr} and it took me a bit to trace my steps). Thank you so much!
MARTIN Reply
January 6, 2019 - 7:30 pm
Oh my God! You saved sooo much headache and worry!! Thank you so much! I deleted the EFI partition on my
computer 2 times and both times, your article came to the rescue!
MOKO Reply
February 1, 2019 - 3:07 am
VIPIN Reply
February 7, 2019 - 7:07 pm
Well, one thing doesn’t seem to work. The computer won’t shutdown properly and will just go to the sign out
screen instead. Oh well.
ADMIN Reply
March 14, 2019 - 11:24 am
Move your mouse to the lower left-hand corner of the screen and right-click the Start button or press
Windows logo key + X on your keyboard. Tap or click Shut down or sign out and choose Shut down
Amazing guide, the only one I could find that worked. It’s a life saver, nothing in the install CD was working
(couldn’t repair because of mismatched version) but opening the command line and rebuilding the boot from
scratch is genius
Thank you!
STEPHEN Reply
April 11, 2019 - 1:03 pm
Thank you for this. I removed a Ubuntu installation off of one of my secondary drives and for some reason
windows didnt have an efi partition or even room for one. I had to shrink my boot drive before doing this.
Thhhhannnkkkkk you so much for this easy to follow tutorial! One extra step I had to do. I had to do start up
repair as it said originally something was messed up on the efi partiition I created and that fixed that issue.
RAMA Reply
May 2, 2019 - 2:50 am
SCOTT Reply
May 2, 2019 - 3:04 am
MARCELO Reply
May 12, 2019 - 4:51 pm
ANONYMOUS Reply
May 15, 2019 - 2:42 pm
LUKE Reply
May 16, 2019 - 10:31 am
Someone said in the earlier comments, “I don’t typically comment on guides”. Well I am usually the same. All I
can say is THANK YOU!!! You just saved me rebuilding a domain controller after the backup failed to restore the
EFI partition correctly. Awesome!
KYAW SI Reply
June 21, 2019 - 11:18 am
This is the only one right solution in whole internet when it comes to this EFI. Awesome
AMINE Reply
June 30, 2019 - 4:25 pm
God bless you. You have just saved me a lot of time and also my data because i was planning to reinstall my
windows. I think this solution you have provided is the only one i could find in the internet except from
reinstalling your windows. Thank you so much.
DOMINIK Reply
July 16, 2019 - 3:18 pm
Great writeup! One of my coworkers borked his Windows 10 install beyond repair and all he had left was the
naked VHDX file from a recent Windows Image backup he took a few days ago.
I created a naked HyperV VM, attached the VHDX and using your howto, was able to boot into his Windows 10
installation successfully.
Thanks alot!
BRAD Reply
August 18, 2019 - 8:48 pm
Hi I just went thru days trying to switch a 500 gig SSD drive to a Larger one. Clone copy, well apparently clone
the Windows 10 OS, but not the EFI partition. I then went back to the small to try and salvage the mistake and
it ran out of disk space trying to fix my the EFI issue. It snowballed from there and I ended up here. I was
fooled a bit when you took those 2 dos command windows and combined them. lol. I just kept comparing and
realized what you did. I like to add that at the end you had a couple problems booting and had to disconnect a
drive and restart and then add a EFI boot line. This is confusing to me since I am not clear about why, but I am
just about ready to restart the system that I used your great tutorial and crossing fingers. Everything went
perfect entering commands with not one error. Thank You for taking the time to create this post and letting it
remain in public. †
PETER Reply
August 25, 2019 - 1:25 pm
WILIEXTREME Reply
September 1, 2019 - 9:16 pm
Thanks for this guide. Finally someone who can provide solution with proper explanation. All other guides are
just a bunch of console commands without any justification why we’re using them.
LAURENCE Reply
September 28, 2019 - 5:42 am
Thanks so much! This guide was literally the only one that helped me, because I accidentally deleted my EFI
while hackintoshing D:
RACERX Reply
October 1, 2019 - 4:30 am
Dude you saved my ass big time. This was THE only solution on the whole internet i could find. Thats what i get
for trying a dua boot windows 10/kali dual boot. note to self: DONT DUAL BOOT GET A SEPARATE DRIVE (yes
im yelling at myself)
SHAMBHU K. Reply
October 2, 2019 - 5:02 pm
Awesome it worked perfectly for windows 10 without a single problem…Thanks you so much.
LOSTPHYSICIST11 Reply
October 14, 2019 - 8:18 am
I love you. Thank you soooo much.
DG Reply
October 16, 2019 - 1:17 am
J Reply
October 19, 2019 - 9:07 pm
Thousand thanks!
I worked charms. Great tutorial =)
DANIAL Reply
October 24, 2019 - 6:13 am
I was totally worried after accidentally deleting my boot files. Hats off to you for creating such a precise and
simple guide with screenshots! You have saved my time and data bro. Kudos & Cheers to you!
LEO Reply
October 26, 2019 - 10:06 pm
best guide for EFI / GPT / Win corrupted bootloader ever! Thank you very much. I am doing for ages the PC
repairs with MBR – classic BIOS but this is kinda new to me. When my favourite bootrec.exe /fixboot says acess
denied it started to be funny. Also the command “bootsect/nt60 sys” saves lives but that did not helped me. I
´ve done stupid thing. I make space on my drive. (EFI,MSR.Win, space, recovery) the HDD was bitlocker
encrypted and I let linux mint to do automatic intall to the empty space. It was ok. Then nothing booted and all
my traditional skills using gparted, windows recovery cmd went to dead end. Only this restored my Win. Now
about to add Linux boot line. And thats it.
Thank you once more!
CRISTIAN Reply
November 4, 2019 - 3:12 am
PRASANTH Reply
November 21, 2019 - 7:22 am
THANKS
JOHN F Reply
December 23, 2019 - 3:56 am
Thank you for the detailed guide it helped me fix my boot problem which occurred after I cloned my drive to an
SSD with clonezilla but then booted with both drives in the machine not work sure what step it was but
somehow the EFI partition got messed up. I tried many things but this is the only guide that worked. I really
appreciate you making the information available. John F.
RUSJ Reply
December 26, 2019 - 1:06 pm
Wondering to know, what about using bcdboot command, it is look simpler than bcdedit ?! Is bcdboot can used
too in this case ?
Do you have article about it ?
MIRKO Reply
December 27, 2019 - 6:15 pm
RAHUL Reply
December 28, 2019 - 10:35 am
Great job with the document! I had one such a PC with a broken EFI partition due an interrupted Ubuntu
installation. This was the only guide that helped me get the whole thing back to life. That’s some good info on
the GPT partition table structure but I managed to get my PC running without the MSR partition.
Thanks and you guys rock!
J Reply
January 2, 2020 - 3:13 am
Woaw my hero.
Very good guide well detailed and solve mostly every boot errors
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