In order to store files in an external storage device, it needs to be initialized, partitioned and formatted. Luckily, the drive manufacturers usually do all these preparations, in all the storage drives, while it’s in the making itself. But in some cases, you might get into situations, where you’ve to reformat or delete the EFI partition from USB.
The need for doing this emerges, when the FAT32/NTFS and EFI partitions are shown at the same time. So, some people might get bewildered to see two partitions, while a USB is plugged-in to their PC. So what you all are supposed to do, while facing these situations?
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Don’t get fret, let’s see the simple procedures for deleting the EFI partition.
What is EFI?
Before getting into a detailed look at the procedure, let’s start with some basic idea on EFI, for those who’re unaware. Usually, when you’ve successfully installed the Windows 10 OS on a SSD / HDD, an EFI partition will be created.
It is a partition on the hard disk or SSD that contains the boot loader programs and kernel images. They’re used by the firmware and their system utility programs that are purposed to run before an OS is booted.
Need for Deleting the EFI Partition
Considering this, we could definitely say that the EFI partition is an indispensable one. When you accidentally delete this, it will cause the system unbootable.
That’s why Microsoft has carried out some security measures to prevent and avoid the accidental deletion of this EFI partition. In some special state of affairs, you might have to remove the EFI system partition to provide some disk space.
Steps to Delete EFI Partition from USB
Many would recommend that the only way to delete the EFI partition is to use the Disk Management tool. The tool is preinstalled in the Windows 10 Operating System.
To get into the Disk Management tool; right click on the Start button and choose the Disk Management option from the oncoming menu.
After getting into the Disk Management window, right click on the USB drive, which you want to partition. But, the catch here is, you can’t delete the EFI partition as the “Delete Volume” option is usually grayed out.
Hence, as said above, the Disk Management is helpless to delete the EFI partition from USB. Luckily Microsoft offers some other option. Let’s go ahead with this tricky DISKPART command line tool.
How to Delete EFI Partition with Diskpart?
- To access the Diskpart, you’ll have to launch the Command Prompt in the Administrator.To do this, type Command Prompt in the Cortana search box then right click on the Command Prompt and choose Run as administrator.
- Once getting the black screen in the Command Prompt, type the following command “diskpart” and hit Enter to run it.
- The prompt would be changed into diskpart, after giving the command. Now, the window can be used for deleting the EFI partitioning tasks.
- For this, we should use the “list disk” command to display the list of disks currently connected to the computer.
- We recommend you to note down the capacity of the disk, in which we want to wipe the Partition off. Once you’re sure about your disk number you need to select it by typing the command “select disk x”. Here, the x refers to the number assigned to the desired disk. For example “select disk 1” is for my USB.
- Following this, issue the command “clean” for wiping out the partition and the files from the drive. That’s it, finally, type “exit” to close the command prompt window.
Now you successfully wiped out the EFI partition from the USB drive. So, if you connect your USB again, it will show you only one partition.
The above method will definitely help to remove the EFI partition from USB. Note that, before getting into the clean command, ensure to take a necessary backup, of the important files and data in it.
Stay tuned with to know some other latest procedures, you’ll be ever needing to enhance your experience with Windows 10.
He is Windows enthusiast and experienced content writer. Apart from writing, Pradeep has involved in SEO projects for many International businesses ranging from online startups to some of the popular world wide blogs.
Thank you. That was a great help!!
Thank you so much. Very helpful! I find the format tool in Windows 10 terrible when compared to the Linux alternatives so usually I do it there. But sometimes I have to go into Windows for other reasons (or not having access to Linux) so knowing how to get rid of the EFI partition is great.
Splendid article. finally i got success after many failed attempt on disk management.
Thank you very much. Very helpful.
And what do you do if the “clean” command gives an access denied error?
Thank you so much, It’s very helpful and work.