Windows 10: how to put the EFI partition on the beginning of the disk to be able to boot windows 10...

Hello,

I'm trying to understand the reason why sometime qemu / kvm / tianocore and also virt-manager can't boot Windows 10 physically,sometimes it can. And maybe I found the reason. Infact I found that when Windows 10 installs the EFI partition as first partition of the disk,qemu / kvm / tianocore / virt-manager can boot it. But sometimes it happens that windows makes another kind of disk structure,for example it can make something like this :

1) 128 mb : microsoft reserved partition

2) 500 mb recovery partition

3) 99 mb EFI partition

in this case,windows 10 will not boot. So,in this case I don't know what to do. Maybe it can work it I delete the 128 and the 500 mb partitions and I expand the EFI partition until the beginning of the disk space. But I'm not sure. I read that I shouldn't erase the 128 mb partition or the system will not boot. So,what should I do ? One thing I'm sure : The EFI partition should be the first partition if I want to boot Windows 10 with tianocore. But I'm not sure about how to do that. Please understand,I don't want to reinstall Windows.

submitted by /u/loziomario
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:)

 

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:

 

GPT SSD Disk - Manage EFI multi-boot for partitions Windows 10 and 8.1

Sorry i forgot.....C: is windows 10 and H: is Windows 8.1
Also Efi partition beside Recovery Partition is a partition that i made it for win 8.1 with EasyUefi Pro
Last efi partition was created for Win 10 for EASY UEFI pro

I will make your steps and reply for news!!!

In 2 disk i have linux with Grub2.

 

Move EFI partition

its to enable win 10 to update to its anniversary edition.. it cant do this due to lack of C drive space i have had a quick try with the trial version of easus.. it didnt seem to be able to do what i want..

i am assuming i cant just delete the efi partition but maybe i could.. as yet i havnt even figured out how to get into the bios of the thing.. maybe that should be my next step.. *Smile

diskpart could probably do it but figuring out how (it aint that user friendly) might be difficult without step by step instructions..

trog