Where did my EFI system partition go?

[trents]

Recently, I replaced my 256 gb SATA SSD with a 500 gb m.2 NVME.

Before changing the hardware I imaged the SATA SSD with Macrium Reflect.

After installing the smaller NVME drive I restored the system from the Macrium Reflect created image, which worked fine except it gave me a system partition about half the size of what the new, larger disk capacity would allow for.

Since the Restore partition came after the system partition I could not expand the system partition (C to use the unallocated space at the end. So, using diskpart I deleted the Recovery partition and then expanded the system partition to include the unallocated space. Since I image the hard drive on a scheduled basis using an external backup drive attached to my router, not having a recovery partition is not a big deal to me.

After deleting the recovery partition the system ran normally but I ran into a problem with not being able to run the Windows Defender boot time scan. So I did an in place rebuild of the system from a Windows 10 image which fixed the boot time scan problem. In addition, it rebuilt the recovery partition, seen now at the right end in Disk Manager.

Looking at the partitions this morning in Disk Manager I noticed there is no EFI partition. Not sure it was there before the in place system rebuild from ISO or not. How could this be? Yes, the motherboard is a modern one with UEFI technology. Is this just a labeling issue? Is (Z the EFI partition but not labeled as such? Can the EFI partition be "Simple"?

 

[Kenrou]

You sure it’s not hidden ? Win10 does a 500mb partition if memory serves.

 

[trents]

You sure it’s not hidden ? Win10 does a 500mb partition if memory serves.

Don't think so. Disk 1 is a USB flash drive I just added to the system a couple minutes ago. It has a bios pic of boot options. Look at the boot options. Not sure what these are about but all three are set to Legacy. The other option for each is "UEFI Only".

 

[Kenrou]

Partition 1 (500mb) is your boot, so UEFI/EFI ? Windows usually only makes 2. Partition 3 would be leftovers from an OS upgrade or a OEM install backup.

EDIT: ofc if your cloning software altered the partition info in any way it’s small wonder Windows apps can’t find/change what’s in it...

 

[trents]

Changed those three CSM parameters to "UEFI only". Made no difference in the partitions I see in Disk Management.

Good thought about the cloning software changing the info. Actually, it wasn't a clone but system rebuild from an image.

I did a from scratch Windows 10 install on my new laptop (not the machine referenced already in this thread) after I replaced the OEM hard drive with an SSD. It shows four partitions.

 

[Kenrou]

Standard Windows install is 2 partitions. OEM/company (like Dell/Compaq) might make 1-2 more hidden for backups and/or Windows re-install.

 

[trents]

Standard Windows install is 2 partitions. OEM/company (like Dell/Compaq) might make 1-2 more hidden for backups and/or Windows re-install.

Then it would have to be something built into the firmware to do this, right? Cause I replaced the OEM drive.

 

[Kenrou]

mmmmm not sure what you mean by firmware, and i'm not even sure if this is still done but when you bought a PC a few years back it came with Windows pre-installed right ? ready to use, partitions already done and you could do a reset without the CD because one of them was a Windows backup (usually hidden but only had 3gb-5gb). If this is not the case, it would mean either the imaging software screwed up or you deleted the wrong partition

 

[trents]

I'm pretty sure I deleted all the partitions during the Windows install on the replacement SSD, which I had used previously in another custom build. I always delete existing partitions when I install from scratch. It was not a clone of the factory disk.

 

[EarthDog]

Why do people copy the title into this space?

Enabling those options in the bios will have nothing to do with adding a partition on your disk (in particular, dynamically). Thats windows which does that upon install afaik.

Doesnt macrium have options to restore to a larger device and expand the space automatically?

 

[Johan45]

That just looks like a "non-UEFI" installation of Win10 to me. IT's not mis-labelled as the EFI partition is only about 100MB and there's nothing in that pic resembling that.
Just because all the HW and the OS are UEFI compliant doesn't mean it has to be installed that way. It's easy enough during install to get the wrong boot media starting. I mean UEFI USB Vs regular USB media. The BIOS always has both options and sometimes needs to be forced to start the the one you want

 

[trents]

That just looks like a "non-UEFI" installation of Win10 to me. IT's not mis-labelled as the EFI partition is only about 100MB and there's nothing in that pic resembling that.
Just because all the HW and the OS are UEFI compliant doesn't mean it has to be installed that way. It's easy enough during install to get the wrong boot media starting. I mean UEFI USB Vs regular USB media. The BIOS always has both options and sometimes needs to be forced to start the the one you want

That occurred to me as well but I have no way now to check if the SSD original installation the image was made from was non-EUFI or EUFI. It's already been redeployed. But that must be the answer.

Now I'm contemplating doing a fresh clean install of Windows. Would there be any particular advantage in doing so? Especially performance wise?

 

[trents]

Shawn, you were correct. After poking around a little in Windows I realized I had installed Windows on the drive while formatted in MBR instead of GPT. Used AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro to convert the drive to GPT without having to reinstall Windows. Now the first partition in Disk Management shows EFI.

 

[trents]

Ah, realize what I did now and why there was no EFI partition on the new NVME drive! When I initialized it I used MBR instead of GPT since it was under 2 TB in size. Forgot that UEFI needs the GPT partition scheme.

 

[Kenrou]

Glad you got it sorted