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I have a 2nd drive which has an EFI System Partition of 750MB and an unused partition of 118GB. I want to remove the EFI System Partition and reformat the entire drive. But when I click around there is no option to remove the EFI. Is there a way?

Thanks,

Eddy

user215779
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    Does this answer your question[?](https://superuser.com/questions/1425600/how-to-delete-folder-from-efi-partition-microsoft) [How do I remove an EFI System partition from a drive in Windows 7?](https://superuser.com/questions/47359/how-do-i-remove-an-efi-system-partition-from-a-drive-in-windows-7) – Ramhound Dec 05 '19 at 20:16

1 Answers1

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Assuming you are on Windows and are asking about DiskMgmt.msc:

  1. Run DISKPART, which is a command-line tool which uses the same Windows volume manager.
  2. Use list disk and select disk <number> to choose the disk.
  3. Use detail disk and list part just to make sure it's the correct disk.
  4. If you want to delete all partitions at once, use clean.
  5. If you want to delete just the specific EFI partition:
    • First choose it with list part and sel part <number>.
    • Double-check using detail part.
    • Delete it with del part override.

Any third-party partition editor will be able to remove the EFI system partition as well.

Note: Make sure the system isn't actually using this EFI system partition to boot your OS. Have a Windows install USB handy just in case.

u1686_grawity
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  • Thanks, that did it. I wonder why Microsoft didn't put that into Disk Manager. – user215779 Dec 06 '19 at 00:28
  • @user215779 - The EFI partition is a required partition 99.99% of the time. These actions while possible are not likely supported. Disk Part is very a powerful tool – Ramhound Dec 06 '19 at 00:32
  • Yes – it's not that they didn't add it, it's more that they deliberately removed it for this specific partition type. Even in DISKPART you have to use the 'override' parameter to delete it. – u1686_grawity Dec 06 '19 at 05:39
  • Removing the EFI partition of the unused drive did not affect anything. – user215779 Dec 08 '19 at 21:30