[SOLVED] [SOLVED] Moving recovery and EFI partition to the correct Drive

qportx

Distinguished
Dec 17, 2008
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1
18,515
Hi,
I have succesfully installed new NVMe hard drive and clean installed windows on it.
I formatted the previously used SSD but it is now stuck with the EFI and Recovery partitions.
When booting up windows i get the window asking which drive I want to boot up from.
From all the tutorials i found they are way above my level of experience, is there any simple solution I could do apart from fresh install?

Screenshot: https://i.ibb.co/JBfwSVr/Screenshot-1.png

Thanks!
 
Solution
Therefore it might be the best to disconnect the SATA drive when installing the windows.
It is ALWAYS best to have only one drive physically connected.
No matter the type.

you could either use a disk control software like AOMEI Partition Assistant to delete the partitions from the 2nd disk
or just use the Windows installer package to accomplish the same thing.

either way you would need to reinstall Windows for the system partitions to be properly placed and recognized on the main OS drive.
 

qportx

Distinguished
Dec 17, 2008
11
1
18,515
you could either use a disk control software like AOMEI Partition Assistant to delete the partitions from the 2nd disk
or just use the Windows installer package to accomplish the same thing.

either way you would need to reinstall Windows for the system partitions to be properly placed and recognized on the main OS drive.
so there is no way to move them or create them without installing windows, right?

is there any harm in booting this way?
 
so there is no way to move them or create them without installing windows
no way to easily relocate them to the Windows disk and still have the OS function correctly.
is there any harm in booting this way?
there shouldn't be any "harm" exactly.
but it will make it impossible to relocate, wipe, or use the full disk space on the secondary drive
without reinstalling Windows later.

before you get very far into customizing the OS, installing apps, saving User files, etc;
it would probably be better to get it done now and not worry about it later.
 

qportx

Distinguished
Dec 17, 2008
11
1
18,515
no way to easily relocate them to the Windows disk and still have the OS function correctly.
there shouldn't be any "harm" exactly.
but it will make it impossible to relocate, wipe, or use the full disk space on the secondary drive
without reinstalling Windows later.

before you get very far into customizing the OS, installing apps, saving User files, etc;
it would probably be better to get it done now and not worry about it later.
thanks... yeah, i just spend two days getting all my files on and work soft getting installed. If there is no harm ill just leave it as it is. As far as i understand there are motherboards that consider the SATA SSD primary when both SATA and NVMe are installed and there are other motherboards that dont. Therefore it might be the best to disconnect the SATA drive when installing the windows.
I might just leave it as it is if there is no harm.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Therefore it might be the best to disconnect the SATA drive when installing the windows.
It is ALWAYS best to have only one drive physically connected.
No matter the type.

 
Solution
Hi,
I have succesfully installed new NVMe hard drive and clean installed windows on it.
I formatted the previously used SSD but it is now stuck with the EFI and Recovery partitions.
When booting up windows i get the window asking which drive I want to boot up from.
From all the tutorials i found they are way above my level of experience, is there any simple solution I could do apart from fresh install?

Screenshot: https://i.ibb.co/JBfwSVr/Screenshot-1.png

Thanks!

Not sure what the issue is exactly from the post, does the system actually boot normally if you select the drive? If yes, go to the BIOS and just select the drive you want to boot from as the main boot drive, remove the others from the list.

If you want a fully clean setup, it sounds like you did the installation with all the other drives connected and Windows placed some files on the other drive.

For that you need to start over, unplug all the drives except the nvme one, do the Windows setup on that. Then connect the other drive and wipe if fully if you want it clean in a single partition.
 
so there is no way to move them or create them without installing windows, right?
You do it this way.
Execute from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last step.
If you encounter any errors then stop immediately.

diskpart
list disk
select disk 2
list partition
select partition x
(select 465GB partition, x=1 or x=2)​
shrink desired=500
create partition efi
format fs=fat32 quick
assign letter=H
exit
bcdboot C:\windows /s H:


Then reboot into BIOS and change boot priority, so first boot device is Windows Boot Manager on 500GB drive.
Then try to boot your system with 120GB drive disconnected.
If all is good, then delete EFI system partition from 120GB drive.

 

qportx

Distinguished
Dec 17, 2008
11
1
18,515
You do it this way.
Execute from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last step.
If you encounter any errors then stop immediately.

diskpart
list disk
select disk 2
list partition
select partition x
(select 465GB partition, x=1 or x=2)​
shrink desired=500
create partition efi
format fs=fat32 quick
assign letter=H
exit
bcdboot C:\windows /s H:


Then reboot into BIOS and change boot priority, so first boot device is Windows Boot Manager on 500GB drive.
Then try to boot your system with 120GB drive disconnected.
If all is good, then delete EFI system partition from 120GB drive.

just found the same link and succcessfuly created the EFI partition on my current C:

I will now try the rest before deleting the partition.

Thanks!