Windows 10: Clean install Windows 10, preserving the EFI partition

I want to clean install Windows 10 on a new hp laptop, to get rid of the hp bloatware.

What I usually do to clean install, is boot from a Windows 10 installation USB, use a diskpart script (by pressing Shift+F10 at setup) to create the 4 reuired partitions, namely:
EFI (100MB), MSR (16MB), Windows (Rest of disk – 950MB), WindowsRE (950MB).
The script is the following:
Code:

The problem that I want to solve is to clean install, delete all partitions with the exception of the EFI partition, which is currently set to 260MB and not the usual 100MB, as it holds in an “HP” directory the hp Diagnostics (run when we press F2 at boot) and data used for BIOS updates.

This HP directory, I wanna preserve is currently as follows:
Code:

Mind you that the current EFI partition is already saved in a Macrium Reflect image.





What are the proposed steps to do this, clean install by preserving the existing EFI partition?

What I though was to alter the script to create a 260MB EFI partition, clean install normally and after completion, restore the 260MB EFI from the Macrium Image. Will that work, or more things are needed?

Any suggestion is more than welcomed!

:)

 

Windows 10 clean install mess up partitions?

If I do a clean install of Windows 10, will it mess up the partitions I have on my 2TB drive?

 

Blank EFI Partition

I have an ASUS R558UR.

I had windows 10 installed on my laptop and I decided to again have a clean install of windows 10. I booted from USB and cleaned windows partition i.e. C drive and also cleaned EFI partition. I reformatted Drive and it had also created EFI partition of 100
MB. I installed windows on laptop and setted that up. After installing windows my laptop it started taking a long time to boot about 90 seconds but earlier it took only 7-10 seconds. After analysing everything I found that my EFI partition is blank.

Please suggest me how to write back EFI partition so as to reduce boot times.

Thanks in Advace.

 

Installing Windows Vista/7 on a GUID Partition Table

Background

GUID Partition Table (GPT) is a boot sector technology poised to replace the venerable Master Boot Record (MBR) principally because MBR has a maximum capacity of 2 TB for a single partition (some single disks have reached 3 TB). Installing Windows on a GPT is a bit tricky because Windows wants to default back to MBR. In order to force Windows on to a GPT, we have to pre-format the drive prior to Windows installation. You can do that during Windows setup using the console.

Requirements

• Windows Vista or 7 (must be 64-bit no matter which OS is used)
• A motherboard with EFI BIOS
• A means to EFI boot the Windows setup (I had to use a USB DVD drive on MSI Z77A-G65, the internal SATA Bluray drives didn't have an EFI option)

Instructions

• Boot into Windows setup using EFI. On the MSI Z77A-G65, it showed up as UEFI:USB-ATAPI DVD ... This will change according to your motherboard and how you are attempting to enter setup. This step is critical. Without booting into setup via EFI, only MBR is available to the setup. There's no easy way to tell from within setup if it is running via EFI or not.
• Once you have booted into setup, continue through the process as you would normally until you reach the dialog which shows you the available drives. Load a driver, if necessary, then press SHIFT+F10 to open the command prompt.
• In the command prompt, enter the following lines, pressing enter after each one. Note that the <id> field below is the disk ID that you want to format as GPT from the "list disk" command. If there's only one drive, <id> will likely be 1. Note: All data on the drive will be lost during this process. Make sure to select the correct drive.
  • diskpart
  • list disk
  • select disk <id>
  • online disk
  • attributes disk clear readonly
  • clean
  • convert gpt
  • create partition efi size=102
  • create partition msr size=32
  • create partition primary
  • format fs=ntfs label="Operating System"
  • assign letter=C
  • exit
  "online disk" and "attributes disk clear readonly" are likely to fail. Don't worry, they are only precautionary. Change the drive letter and label to whatever you want. Also, the above command (specifically "create partition primary") will consume all remaining space on the drive. If you want multiple partitions with fixed sizes, substitute what you want in place of "create partition primary."
• You may now close the command prompt and click on "Refresh" back in the dialog to choose where to install Windows. You should now see at least 2 partitions (I think Microsoft Reserved is hidden) and it will only let you install on a non EFI/MSR partition. Click on the primary partition and proceed with the installation as normal.
• Note that in the EFI BIOS after installing Windows via EFI, you can no longer directly boot the volume Windows is installed on. Instead, you must boot via "Windows Boot Manager" (on MSI Z77A-G65, it was "UEFI: Windows Boot Manager"). Keep that in mind if you wish to tweak the boot order.

Conclusion

That should do it. You should be in Windows with >2 TB of hard drive capacity available if you had more than 2 TB on the Windows partition. Congratulations being on the bleeding edge of technology! *Rockout :rockout: