Windows 10: Given a disk with two EFI System Partitions, is there a way to select what ESP to install...

Seeking input from Windows UEFI Boot Loader experts. Asking for a friend..

Given a disk with two EFI System Partitions, is there a way to select what ESP to install Windows to?

:)

 

Create EFI partition before installing Windows 10

Most likely, you won't need larger ESP (EFI System Partition). Windows OS loader is rather small and Fedora will most likely just install GRUB on ESP and place the rest of its boot files in /boot which will be on a separate partition anyway. Unless you're going to experiment with unusual Linux setups (like EFISTUB booting etc.), 100 MB should be sufficient.

If you want to have a larger ESP just in case, you can create one using Windows installation media before the partitioning step.

How to manually create ESP using Windows installation media

Before the partitioning step:

(Technically, you could also do this on the partitioning step and click Refresh afterwards.)

1. Press Shift+F10 to open Command Line.
   
2. Type diskpart Enter. Diskpart will take a while to launch.
   
3. Type list disk Enter A list of disks will be printed. Note the number next to yours (most likely 0). Select that disk: select disk 0 Enter.
   
4. Create ESP: create partition efi size=500 Enter (500 is partition size in MiB).
   
5. Exit Diskpart: exit Enter.
   

 

How do I move ESP - EFI SYstem Partition - from a partition to another

You must have done something wrong or did not follow exactly what I posted above. If done correctly, you should see 2 EFI System partitions and both can boot into Windows. From Boot Menu, you should see 2 Windows Boot Manager





Why did you use list volume instead of list partition ? you need to know which partition to delete.








Try again. Use the first Windows Boot Manager to boot. Once in Windows, delete the second Windows Boot Manager.

 

Lost EFI/ESP Partition | No Room Preceding OS Part | Options?

• Lost EFI/ESP Partition.
• After deleting MSR, on 17Mb is available (tutorial on woshub to re-add ESP + MSR, then copy *.efi files from %windir%)
• Diskpart shrink QUERYMAX tells me that I have 4gb, but wont let me free up (tried 228 [100efi + 128msr as well trying 116 after finding out win10 msr only 16mb).

1. Can I migrate / defreg files to back of disk, opening up more room b4 os part?
2. what about single partition windows installs, where x looks in windir for boot information? where x is ? EFI? BCD? i'm not sure, i got the impression that if no ESP part, windows looks in the %windir%

thanks =)