How to Create/Restore EFI Partition on Windows 11

Create/Restore EFI Partition on Windows 11

A computer without a boot partition might prevent your system from restarting because there's nothing to boot from. In this case, you'll need to create an EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) system partition from your Windows 11 device. Alternatively, you can use third-party recovery software to restore an existing EFI partition on your Windows 11 computer, which will save time and effort.

An EFI System Partition is necessary as it allows the Windows 11 operating system to boot from the hard drive that's already installed on your computer. An EFI partition is not needed for booting from the primary drive when using an external hard drive instead of the built-in one. Hence, if you have an EFI boot partition on your computer and it gets accidentally deleted, you can recover the deleted boot partition with our steps or manually create the same EFI boot partition.

What happens if the Windows 11 boot partition is missing?

If you're experiencing issues with your Windows 11 computer and have attempted to fix the system without success, you might need to use recovery options to restore deleted partitions. You can do this manually or by utilizing third-party software to assist you with the process.

Follow the steps below to recover the deleted partition:

Step 1: Click on the Start menu, and type "Command Prompt" in the search bar.

Step 2: In the opened "Command Prompt" window, type "bootrec /fixmbr" to repair the Master Boot Record in case it's corrupted or damaged, and press the Enter key.

Step 3: Next, you need to enter two commands, pressing the Enter key after each one. The commands are:

The translation of 'bootrec /fixboot' in Chinese is: 'Repair the boot sector'

The American English translation for 'bootrec /rebuildbcd' is 'Bootrec /RebuildBCD'.

Step 4: Restart your computer and the deleted partition should now be restored to its original format.

Restore the EFI Boot Partition with Partition Master

If you don't feel comfortable manually fixing the deleted or corrupted EFI partition on your Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista computer, you can always rely on AOMEI Partition Assistant to automatically recover the lost partition for you. Simply download and install the AOMEI Partition Assistant Recovery software, and with just a few simple steps, you can recover your damaged or lost EFI partition.

MiniTool Partition Wizard offers multiple ways to help users wipe data from hard drives for secure storage elsewhere. It can also resize, move, merge, create, format, and delete partitions. MiniTool Partition Wizard is a user-friendly solution that provides a reliable and trustworthy partition manager, assisting users in managing disk space more efficiently, optimizing partition layout, and detecting and fixing any errors or corruption.

Here are the simple steps to recover the EFI boot partition with the tool Partition Master:

Launch Partition Master, and choose “Partition Recovery”.

Step 1: Run the Partition Recovery tool on your computer.

Select the hard drive or device where you lost your partition, and click “Scan” to continue.

Select the hard drive where you want to scan for lost partitions

Step 2: Wait until the scanning process is completed.

Have the program scan the selected disk and look for lost partitions.

Step 3: Preview and recover the lost partitions

Please double-click on the partition that is labeled as "Lost" but with "Good" recoverability.

Preview the contents of the lost partition. Click “OK,” and then click “Proceed” to start the recovery of the lost partition.

Select the partition to recover

Step 4: Click "Restore Now" to complete the partition recovery process.

Note: If the utility reports conflicts, back up important data on the partitions listed on an external hard drive first. Then proceed with the final step to recover the lost partition.

How to create an EFI partition using CMD in UTF-8 encoding? In the Windows operating system, creating an EFI System Partition (ESP) through the Command Prompt (CMD) involves some basic disk management commands. Follow these steps: 1. Open Command Prompt as an administrator: - Press `Win + X` and choose "Command Prompt (Admin)" or "Windows PowerShell (Admin)" depending on your Windows version. 2. Determine the disk number for the partition you want to create the EFI on. Enter this command and press Enter to view all disk information: ``` diskpart ``` 3. Access the disk management tool: ``` list disk ``` Examine the disk list and note the number of the disk you want to work with (usually "0", "1", etc.). 4. Select the disk you want to operate on: ``` select disk ``` Replace `` with the number of your disk. 5. Create a new partition, typically designated as ESP and formatted as FAT32: ``` create partition efi size= ``` Replace `` with the size you want to allocate for the EFI partition, e.g., "512" for a 512MB partition. 6. Select the newly created EFI partition: ``` select partition ``` Replace `` with the number of the new partition. 7. Format the partition as FAT32: ``` format fs=fat32 quick ``` 8. Assign a drive letter to the partition (optional but usually required): ``` assign letter= ``` Replace `` with the drive letter you want to assign to the partition, such as "E". 9. Finally, exit the diskpart utility: ``` exit ``` After following these steps, you should have successfully created an EFI partition using CMD in Windows.

Knowing how to create an EFI partition can be very useful, especially when you find yourself missing or with a corrupted one. If you need to manually create an EFI partition from the Command Prompt (CMD), just follow our step-by-step guide that will show you how to do it.

Step 1: In the search box on your Windows 11/10/8/7 taskbar, type Command Prompt, and hit the Enter key to open it.

Step 2: Run the following list of commands, pressing 'Enter' after each one.

Disk Utility (answer Yes when asked if you want to make changes to your computer)

List Disks

Select Disk (choose a disk from the available options)

List partitioning

Create an EFI partition

Quick format the file system as FAT32: format fs=fat32 quick

List partitioning

Printer drive (letter of the drive that contains the Windows installation CD)

Exit

bcdboot X:\Windows (replace "X" with the letter of the Windows operating system partition)

Step 3: Reboot your PC, and the newly created EFI partition should be usable.

Conclusions

Now that you know your Windows 11 computer is missing an EFI boot partition, you know the steps to take to create or recover the boot partition so your computer has a place to boot from. While running commands manually might be easy for the tech-savvy, third-party recovery software like Partition Master can help users who need a simpler solution to fix or create a boot partition.

We hope the solution provided has helped fix your computer. Start saving time and hassle from today with the Partition Master tool.