Windows 10: Can I remove the EFI Partition from a non system disk?

I have a drive that I want to use as a backup drive for a Windows 10 machine. The problem is the old drive has a boot partition on it that is making Windows 10 go nuts every time I plug it in. If I wait until after the machine boots and then plug it in via USB adapter then I can get to the files but I want to install it inside the machine permanently.

A photo of the Disk Manager is below. How do I (or should I) remove that EFI System Partition? The Disk Manager won't let me do it.





:)

 

Formating Efi system partition as FAT32

During an install you can remove all the critical partitions, of which the EFI System partition is one. You do not have to pre-format a drive during an install. Just remove the Critical partitions ( MSR, EFI, Recovery and OS)and leave unallocated space.
The install will take care of the rest.

You can delete the partition and use the Diskpart create partition EFI command with qualifiers, if necessary. If you have already created the partition, try using Diskpart from a command prompt (Shift+F10 during the install) and format.

If you need to convert a drive from MBR to GPT or vice versa, you need to remove ALL partitions.

 

How do I move EFI System Partition from a partition at higher offset to another ?

Hi,

To better assist you with your query on how to move ESP, we suggest posting it in our Microsoft TechNet
forum. We have highly technical users and IT professionals there that can address your concern.

Please post back if you have any Windows concerns for further assistance.

 

Download and install a partition tool.
I generally use:
MiniTool Partition Wizard Free
for online maintenance.


If that gives you a problem because it's in use or some such,
MiniTool let's you create a bootablw USB or CD,
so you can do offline maintenance.
However, I've never used it.
I use Gparted-live for my bootable offline partition maintenance.
Anyway, boot from the CD and none of the drives will be in use
so you should be able to delete it.


bv

 

Do I risk any problems accessing the data on the other partitions on that drive if I remove that first EFI one?

 

No, on a non-boot drive, it's just another one of the 128 possible partitions you can have on that drive.
The EFI partition is only special at boot time when booting off that drive on a machine with UEFI firmware, instead of the old BIOS-type firmware.

Is your system set to boot off USB first, rather than the first SATA drive,
such that it tries to boot from that drive when you do a reboot while it is plugged in?
Is that what you mean by "go nuts".


bv