Moving / recreating EFI partition

I recently upgraded my laptop with an SSD, moving my older HDD into the optical drive bay. I then installed Windows 10 from a UEFI USB (using the Windows 10 media creation tool), on my SSD (with the HDD also installed). But the problem is the EFI partition is still on my HDD, not the SSD. I would like to move the EFI partition to the SSD, as the HDD I feel might be on the verge of failing.

Is there a way to either recreate the partition, or move it from my HDD to the SSD?

I came across this thread (System won't boot after removing second hard drive, EFI? - Page 3 - Windows 7 Help Forums), but it mentions you should remove the HDD first before following the steps. But, because the screws are starting to wear out on my laptop (horrible T5 torx screws), I don't want to be opening it up too many times to insert and remove parts...

Any help greatly appreciated!

Kyhi said:

- Boot the computer using the Windows 7/8/8.1/10 installation media.
- On the first screen, press SHIFT+F10 to bring up the command prompt.
- Run the following commands at the command prompt.

diskpart
list disk
select disk # Note: Select the disk where you want to add the EFI System partition.
list partition
select partition # Note: Select the Windows OS partition (# number) or your data partition.
shrink desired=100
create partition efi size=100
format quick fs=fat32
assign letter=s
list partition
list volume Note: Note the volume letter where the Windows OS is installed.
exit

bcdboot X:\windows /s S:
Note: Replace "X" with the volume letter of the Windows OS partition.

BCDBoot copies the boot files from the Windows partition to the EFI System partition and creates the BCD store in the same partition.

Remove the Windows installation media and restart the computer into your BIOS settings and set the SSD as the First Boot Device.

Thanks for your help! So after doing this, can I now delete the EFI partition from the other HDD? Is there a concern to worry about setting the SSD partition as active?

quirkyprotein said:

Thanks for your help! So after doing this, can I now delete the EFI partition from the other HDD? Is there a concern to worry about setting the SSD partition as active?

For future reference,

I carried out those commands, but from inside Windows. I then restarted the PC, and booted from the Windows USB installer, and pressed Shift+F10 to bring up a CMD when the installer had begun. I then used diskpart to 'clean' the disk with the old EFI partition. (diskpart > list disk > select disk X > clean). And then simply restarted the PC, and all was fine!

Many thanks for the help!

Hi,

this post seems to be exactly what i need to fix my problem.
after installing a SSd and migrating windows 10 on it, i tried to remove my old HD and windows would't boot. i realized that the EFI partition was still showing on the old HD but not on my new SSD.
i followed your instructions to create a new EFI partition on the SSD but when i type the bcdboot X:\windows /s S: i get a "failure when attemting to copy boot files" message. (i replace the X with C which is the volume of the SSD where windows is)
can you help me?

Kyhi said:

- Boot the computer using the Windows 7/8/8.1/10 installation media.
- On the first screen, press SHIFT+F10 to bring up the command prompt.
- Run the following commands at the command prompt.

diskpart
list disk
select disk # Note: Select the disk where you want to add the EFI System partition.
list partition
select partition # Note: Select the Windows OS partition (# number) or your data partition.
shrink desired=100
create partition efi size=100
format quick fs=fat32
assign letter=s
list partition
list volume Note: Note the volume letter where the Windows OS is installed.
exit

bcdboot X:\windows /s S:
Note: Replace "X" with the volume letter of the Windows OS partition.

BCDBoot copies the boot files from the Windows partition to the EFI System partition and creates the BCD store in the same partition.

Remove the Windows installation media and restart the computer into your BIOS settings and set the SSD as the First Boot Device.

stark said:

Hi,

this post seems to be exactly what i need to fix my problem.
after installing a SSd and migrating windows 10 on it, i tried to remove my old HD and windows would't boot. i realized that the EFI partition was still showing on the old HD but not on my new SSD.
i followed your instructions to create a new EFI partition on the SSD but when i type the bcdboot X:\windows /s S: i get a "failure when attemting to copy boot files" message. (i replace the X with C which is the volume of the SSD where windows is)
can you help me?

I have the same problem. Windows boot manager is on wrong hard drive. Can not move it...

stark said:

Hi,

this post seems to be exactly what i need to fix my problem.
after installing a SSd and migrating windows 10 on it, i tried to remove my old HD and windows would't boot. i realized that the EFI partition was still showing on the old HD but not on my new SSD.
i followed your instructions to create a new EFI partition on the SSD but when i type the bcdboot X:\windows /s S: i get a "failure when attemting to copy boot files" message. (i replace the X with C which is the volume of the SSD where windows is)
can you help me?

Hey! I figured it out myself. Remember to replace the X with the volume you have the boot manager at the moment, ie the HDD. (The wrong one). It is like reading that information and copying it to the volume S: (in this example). I hope you understand my explanation.

So this is the top google search result for "moving efi system partition". Well let me just add this one thing: bcdboot X:\windows /s S: is not enough. You also need to manually copy all the files in your original EFI partition to the new EFI partition you just created. That is, assign a letter to the original EFI partition, and do an xcopy /s t:*.* s: where t: is the letter you assigned to the original EFI partition. Without those files your BIOS would not recognize it as a bootable EFI partition. You're welcome.

pflau said:

So this is the top google search result for "moving efi system partition". Well let me just add this one thing: bcdboot X:\windows /s S: is not enough. You also need to manually copy all the files in your original EFI partition to the new EFI partition you just created. That is, assign a letter to the original EFI partition, and do an xcopy /s t:*.* s: where t: is the letter you assigned to the original EFI partition. Without those files your BIOS would not recognize it as a bootable EFI partition. You're welcome.

That is not true at all. The bcdboot command places all of the files needed into the selected partition for the UEFI firmware to see it as a bootable EFI partition and boot the designated Windows installation.

NavyLCDR said:

That is not true at all. The bcdboot command places all of the files needed into the selected partition for the UEFI firmware to see it as a bootable EFI partition and boot the designated Windows installation.

Perhaps that's what it's supposed to do when it works. In my case it did not. Maybe it will be addressed in one of the many Patch Tuesdays to come.