Windows Partition Layout. The Windows 10 UEFI parition layout looks like the following. First comes a System Partition containing the master boot record (MBR). Without the system parition you will not be able to start Windows. Follwing the system partition you have the Microsoft Reserved Parition (MSR) that manages the partitions itself. Windows 10 couldn’t be installed We couldn’t update the system reserved partition. Now the easiest way this issue could be fixed is to increase the size of EFI system reserved partition and that’s what exactly we are going to teach in this article.
Nov 23, 2020 • Filed to: Windows Computer Solutions • Proven solutions
When your computer's EFI partition gets missing and you cannot boot the computer anymore, do you know how to get it back? You most probably do not, since you are here. Well, in this article, you will be taught two great methods through which you can restore EFI partition on Windows 10. If you do not have comprehensive knowledge about EFI partition, you will learn it here.
Also, for missing files from unbootable computers, the Recoverit Data Recovery tool will be introduced to you to recover those files back. The article promises to be educative.
What is EFI Partition?
EFI system partition (ESP) is a partition found on a storage device such as a hard drive, the files of which are used by UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) to start different utilities, as well as the installed operating system i.e Windows. EFI stands for Extensible Firmware Interface. EFI partition creates various sections on the hard disk of your computer. The information stored in these different sections is normally managed on a separate basis by Windows OS. EFI partition contains four major parts including device drivers, data files, boot loaders, and system utilities.
What Will Happen if EFI Partition is Missing?
As mentioned above, EFI partition is quite useful to Windows systems, especially those that use the Unified Extensive Firmware Interface (UEFI). Now, if the EFI partition is missing, there will be a problem with your system booting. While the boot loader (UEFI in this case) is tasked with loading all the necessary utilities and files before the booting sequence is complete, the ESP resolves any errors that could prevent the booting from being a success. In a nutshell, if the EFI partition goes missing, your Windows will be unable to boot.
Restore EFI Partition in Windows 10 via Command Prompt
To restore or create an EFI partition in Windows 10 using Command Prompt, follow these steps:
- Use your Windows 10 installation or bootable media to boot your PC since your PC is unbootable on its.
- When the computer is on the first screen, press these keys on your keyboard: 'Shift' and 'F10', altogether. This shortcut will lead you to the 'Command Prompt' window
- In the window, type in these commands, remembering to press the 'Enter' key after you type each command:
diskpart
list disk
select disk # (choose the location where you initially deleted the EFI partition from, for instance)
list partition
create partition EFI size=260
format quick fs=fat32
list partition
list volume (input the volume letter where your Windows has been installed)
- Continue by inputting the following too, with 'Enter' taking you to the next command:
exit
bcdboot c:windows (where 'c' is the volume letter of the Windows partition)
- Remove the installation media of Windows from the computer and reboot it.
Restore EFI Partition through Clean Installing Windows 10
Another method with which you can restore the EFI system partition is via clean installing Windows 10 altogether. The steps involved are:
- Create an installation media for Windows
- Change your BIOS boot order to 'Removable device' if you are using a USB.
Resize System Reserved Partition Windows 10 Bootable
- If you are using DVD/CD, then change the order to start with 'CD-DVD Drive'
- Exit the window by clicking 'Yes', has agreed to save the changes made
- Restart your computer and insert the installation media into it to begin the clean installation. Choose the keyboard input, your choice of language, currency, and time formats. To continue, click 'Next'
- Tap the 'Install now' button
- Read the license terms and tick to agree to them, then move to the far bottom right of the window and select 'Next'
- Choose the option 'Custom: Install Windows only'. Note that all your files will be deleted in this process so if you wish, use the bootable media to backup all your files first.
- Choose to completely delete both system and primary partitions to have a completely clean Windows install. This is instead of formatting these partitions
- Choose the space that has not been allocated and select 'New' to create a new partition.
- Follow the instructions for creating a new partition till Windows set up and restart.
How to Recover Data from an Unbootable Computer Due to Broken EFI Partition
Because EFI partition is necessary for your computer to boot, a broken or missing EFI partition will prevent you from booting your computer. What happens to the data stored inside the computer then? Do they get lost forever or till you fix the problem? Of course not! With Recoverit Data Recovery, you can retrieve all your data, no matter the format
This expert tool recovers data from crashed systems, corrupted system files or drives, SD cards with errors, malware-infected systems or disks, and so on. Using the steps below, you can launch the user-friendly Recoverit and recover all your missing data:
Step 1 – Create Bootable Media
Create a bootable media on a different computer, one that works fine. To do this, you need an empty USB flash drive or CD/DVD. Insert any of these devices to the computer, install and launch the app on it. Select the option that lets you recover your files from a crashed system. Begin by clicking 'Start'.
To create the bootable media properly, select the option that applies to you. If you are using a USB, you will be prompted to 'Format'. Do this and choose the 'Create' button. If your device is a CD or DVD, just go ahead to 'Create'.
Recoverit will download the necessary firmware for the bootable media creation. Then it will format your drive and create the media. Now, you should eject the CD/DVD or unplug the USB, as the case may be.
Step 2 – Boot Computer with Bootable media
Change your BIOS boot order to 'Removable Device'. Plug the bootable media into your system and restart it. Plug another external drive with which you will store your recovered files.
Step 3 – Select Recovery Mode
Click on 'Data Recovery' > 'Start' to get Recoverit to scan the drive for your missing files.
Step 4 – Recover and Save
You can preview the files even while Recoverit is scanning and retrieving them. Afterward, save the files in the external drive by clicking 'Recover'.
The Bottom Line
You can restore the lost EFI partition through Command Prompt or via a Windows 10 clean installation. Both methods are quite effective so either one you choose is fine. If you cannot boot your computer because the EFI partition is broken, Recoverit Data Recovery can restore your system files and data.
Computer Data Recovery
- Windows PE
- System problems
- PC Errors
Position: How Tos - 3 Methods to Resize Partition in Windows 10/8/7/XP
Summary
About resizing partition in Windows 10/8/7/XP
Resizing a partition is the process of changing partition's size via extending or shrinking it. You can either increase a partition's size or shrink it based on your needs. Besides, you can also split a partition into two partitions or add free disk space to any existing partition.
A partition, also called drive or volume, is a part of continuous logical space on hard disk. A hard drive can be divided into multiple partitions which can be used to store a variety of files such as operating system and personal data. If your hard drive has very large capacity, and you can create more than one partitions on it, so that you can separate Windows, installed application and individual data by storing files on different partitions.
However, when you partition a hard disk, there might be chances that you are not satisfied with the partition size or number the first time you try. For example, one partition might be too small to hold all your data. If your system partition (Windows drive) is running out of free space, computer may slow down or even cause other issues.
Fortunately, resizing partition in Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP becomes a lot easier than previous versions of Windows systems. We can use system built-in tool to resize volume as well as free partition manage to change partition size without data loss. In this article, we'll show you different methods to resize partition in Windows.
Why do you need to resize partition in Windows?
There are a number of reasons that users want to change partition size, and here we list the most common ones:
- To make best use of disk space: Due to the daily increasing of data amount, some partition may be full of data, while some partition still has large free space. You can move free disk space between to take full advantage of space.
- Low disk space issue appears: You receive error message from Windows, which says 'You are running out of disk space on Windows (C:). To free space on this drive by deleting old or unnecessary files, click here…' 'You are running out of disk space on Recovery (D:). Click here to see if you can free space on this drive.' Deleting files is not recommended on system partition, for you may delete vital system files and cause system crash. In such situation, you can extend partition to fix the issue.
- There is only one big partition on hard disk. When you buy a new PC, the hard drive is divided into one big partition. You can shrink this volume and create a new partition on unallocated space.
- You want to dual-booting compute. You may want to install another operating system such as Ubuntu on same hard drive, but the partition does not have enough room. Thus you need to extend partition for the installation of new operating system.
Method 1: Resize partition using Disk Management
Disk Management is a Windows built-in utility, first introduced in Windows XP for the purpose of replacing fdisk command. It allows users to view and manage disk volumes on computer. Users can view disk layout, file system, status, capacity, type, etc. Besides, it allows users to create, delete, format extend or shrink partition with easy steps. Now we'll show you how to resize partition in Windows Disk Management.
Step 1 Open Disk Management. Go to desktop and right-click on This PC ('Computer' in Windows 7) icon and click Manage option from context menu. Click Disk Management under Storage from the Computer Management window.
Step 2 Choose the partition you want to resize, right-click on it and select Shrink Volume option.
Step 3 Input the space you want to change and click Shrink button. When you enter the amount of space to shrink, please note the unit is MB, for example, if you want to shrink 10GB from this volume, you should input 10240.
Method 2: Resize partition in Windows 10/8/7 without data loss
This solution gives three examples to show how to extend and shrink partition as well as add free space to existing partition without losing data. In this section, we use a free partition manager program to complete these tasks.
Free partition manager to resize partition in Windows
DiskGenius Free is high-end Windows partition manager software, and it is compatible with all versions of Windows systems including PC and server OS. It allows users to create, format, delete and convert partition; it is also able to move, resize, extend, shrink and split partition without damaging a single bit of data.
- It is supportive over different file systems, including NTFS, exFAT, FAT32, FAT12, FAT16, Ext2, Ext3 and Ext4. Thus you can resize partitions formatted into these filesystems.
- Support resizing partition on both MBR and GPT disks.
- Add unallocated space to any existing partition without data loss.
- Create WinPE bootable disk so that you can manage disk and partition when system fails to boot.
- Recover deleted or lost files & partitions from hard drive, USB disk and virtual disk.
Case 1: Extend partition without data loss
This guide will move free space from one partition to another without damaging existing data.
Step 1 Download and install DiskGenius free on your computer. Run the software and you can see its interface showing all partitions and disks on your computer with detailed parameters.
Step 2 Find and right-click on the partition you want to increase size and select Extend Partition from the displayed menu.
Step 3 Select the partition which contains enough free space and click OK, so that you can move free disk space from this volume.
Step 4 Set disk space you want to move between partitions. You can either drag the partition or enter exact number to decide how much free space you want to transfer. Then click Start button.
Step 5 The program starts to resize partition based on your settings. Wait for the process to complete.
Case 2: Shrink partition without losing data
This tutorial shows you how to shrink a partition without data loss. The disk space shrunk from the disk can be added to other partition, kept unallocated or created new partition.
Step 1 Right-click on the partition you want to shrink and select Resize Partition from context menu.
Step 2 On the Resize Partition window you can set disk space you want to decrease.
You have three options on the disk space cut from the big partition: Create new partition, Keep unallocated and Merge to other partition. You can make the decision in line with your own requirement.
Step 3 Click Start button and the program starts to resize the partition based on your settings. Click Complete button when the process finishes.
Case 3: Add unallocated space to partition
Since system cannot store data on free/unallocated disk space, you need to create new partition on it or add it to current partition so that you can make use of this disk area. Now we'll show you how to add unallocated space to partition without affecting existing data.
Step 1 Launch DiskGenius free version from your PC, right-click on the unallocated disk space and select Allocate Free Space To. Then you can choose which partition to add this free space.
Step 2 DiskGenius prompts operations to be done. Click Yes and it starts adding unallocated space to partition.
Method 3: Resize partition via repartitioning hard drive
Repartitioning a hard drive which is not properly partitioned is another solution to change partition size and partition number. During partitioning hard drive you can set partition type, number, size, volume name, drive letter, etc. thus you can arrange partition according to your needs.
Disk partitioning will delete all current partitions and data before creating new volumes, thus you'll lose all data on the disk which already contains volumes. On this occasion, you need to backup data before repartitioning hard drive. Besides, you also need to reinstall Windows if the disk to be partitioned is the one where Windows is installed.
Before partitioning hard drive, you should plan partition layout in advance, for example, which partition table to use, how many partitions you need and what the partition size you want, etc. As to tools to partition/repartition a disk you can use free partition manager which makes the process intuitive and very simple. You can complete the process with several clicks.
Step 1 Connect the hard drive you want to repartition and launch DiskGenius Free.
Step 2 Select the disk to be partitioned and click Quick Partition button from the toolbar.
Step 3 Select partition number, size, type, 4K alignment, etc. and click OK button. Wait for a couple of seconds and the disk will be partitioned successfully.
Notes on resizing partition in Windows 10/8/7/XP
Though the partition resizing process is easy and does not cause data loss, there are some things you should pay attention to when resizing partition for data security.
- Backup data all data on partitions you want to resize. Though Disk Management and free partition manager changes partition size without losing data, there are still chances you will lose valuable data if the process gets interrupted due to certain causes.
- While resizing partition, do not read or write data to the partition being resized, especially when the process has to move files.
- The resizing process may take long when partition has large capacity and contains large amount of data. Make sure your computer won't enter hibernate or sleep mode.
- Make sure the partition you want to extend or shrink does not contain errors, or the resize process might be blocked by these errors.
- Do not shun down before the resizing partition complete, and make sure there is not sudden power failure during resizing process.
Resize System Reserved Partition Windows 10 Iso
Conclusion
How To Expand Windows 10 Partition
As we've mentioned it is surprisingly easy to resize partition in Windows 10/8/7/XP, and you can either extend or shrink partition depending on your requirement. Both Disk Management and Eassos partition manager can help you resize Windows partition, but the latter one works more efficiently when dealing with complex situations. Don't be afraid to do it, but also don't go overhead. Resizing a partition which contains errors may lead to severe issues such as data loss. If you have any questions or need help on resizing partition in Windows 10, please feel free to email our support team.
