Delete EFI partition on external drive.

Anonymous
2024-06-18T13:31:49+00:00

I've been having problems regarding SSD cloning. Macrium have been very helpful. It appears that I'm booting from the 2 installed internal hard drives (!?!).

It was working OK for ages but obviously something subsequently has happened.

It was recommended I clone to an external drive.

Fortunately I had a another SDD that I could use. I reformatted this and connected externally . Checked with file folder that it could be read and was empty. All good.

Used Macrium to clone but was concerned that if supposedly booting form 2 internal drives, what am I copying, and would it work?

It didn't!

Both drives had 3 partitions; An EFI System partition (100MB), Windows 11 Home partition (465 GB) and a Recovery Partition ((610MB)

To cut long story short, the external drive now consists of 2 partitions, The EFI partition and an unallocated partition.

The external SDD is no accessible !!. I get the message "You currently don't have permission to access this folder" and continuing, "You have been denied access to this folder" " to gain access to this folder you will have to use the security tab"

Don't understand what to do next.

Using Disk Management and right clicking on greyed out EFI partition gives a greyed out window

Can anyone help in getting this 'external' drive accessible again ?

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Recovery and backup

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  1. Ramesh Srinivasan 90,210 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2024-06-22T09:26:00+00:00

    Assuming you haven't closed the Command window yet.

    Please run:

    select partition 1
assign letter=Y
exit
bcdboot C:\Windows /s Y: /f UEFI
diskpart
select volume Y
remove
exit

    Post screenshot.

    That should make the Drive 0 bootable.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-06-19T16:34:21+00:00

    Hi Saltgrass,

    Thanks for your response . Your not the first to state "it isn't a good idea to leave an original and cloned version of a drive on the same system". All my previous desktops from Windows 7 onwards had dual HDD's/SSD's installed providing boot and image. It's only now (windows 11) that I've had any problems.

    Ran bcdedit and result is:

    Can't say I understand what I'm looking at. for example, the bootmgr identifier device states 'HarddiskVolume5' - Volume 5 ?

    I also assume it is using C:/ bootloader (drive 0)

    As previously advised, why I thought both disk were involved in the loading windows 11 OS is that both disks have be connected. If I disconnect the 'image' drive (1), boot fails. Both must be connected for successful boot. I'm at a loss to see/understand which drive (0 or 1) is being for boot from the above and why it fails if drive 1 is disconnected

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-06-19T15:47:52+00:00

    CMD's run and partition deleted. Thanks very much for your instructions.

    SSD not 'visible' in file folder because has no formatted volume. How do I merge above partitions, create a single volume that can be formatted??

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-06-19T11:51:08+00:00

    It isn't a good idea to leave an original and cloned version of a drive on the same system.

    If you want to know where it is booting from, use this.

    C:\Windows\System32>bcdedit

    Windows Boot Manager

    identifier {bootmgr}

    device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1

    path \EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI

    description Windows Boot Manager

    locale en-US

    inherit {globalsettings}

    flightsigning Yes

    default {current}

    resumeobject {a2261767-baf4-11ed-b39f-861e8bfa3876}

    displayorder {6713eba6-d8c2-11ee-845c-8ca53cacc006} 

                        {current}

    toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}

    timeout 30

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-06-18T17:17:13+00:00

    Hi Remesh,

    Thanks for your reply. In answer to your questions:-

    1. Yes I do. Currently can't access and therefore not available for use.
    2. Probably both!. I've two SSD's. the first is labelled 'Windows 11 Home" and is the C:/ drive. The second is labelled 'Windows 11 Image" and is the D:/ drive. With both connected, the system boots no problem. If I disconnect the image drive (D:/) then the system won't boot. Ties up with response from Macrium.

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