Rebuilding the EFI partition

Mar 15, 2025

For some reason, I am recently migrating my entire OS to Linux. However, at the same time, I still hope to have Windows installed alongside it. The problem I realized is that installing Windows after Linux would make the EFI partition cleared (and I do not feel like manually doing these things inside Linux). I also found that the one in my computer is already messy with all leftovers by previous dual-system installations. Therefore, here is a tutorial for rebuilding the partition.

The first step is to get the Media Creation Tool. Using the tool and an external USB drive, make a regular Windows installation drive. Then, use any possible method to remove the EFI partition. This could be done within any Live CD or the Windows installation drive.

Boot into the Windows installation USB. Follow the guide and select “Repair Tool”. Open Command Prompt from the Repair Tool.

First, check if there is any existing bootloaders existing:

bcdedit /v

If so, execute

bcdedit /delete {[identifier]}

to remove it.

Type diskpart to load the partition editing tool. Run

list disk

to list all disks. Select the disk to install the EFI partition:

select disk [identifier]

Run detail disk to check the disk information.

Then, create the EFI partition:

create partition efi size=512
list part
select part [identifier (of the new partition)]

Format it into FAT32 and leave diskpart:

format quick fs=fat32
assign letter=s
exit

If there already exists a Windows installation, then execute

bcdboot C:\Windows /s S: /f UEFI

The problem should be fixed.