When you install Windows 11 or 10 on your computer’s boot drive, the process automatically creates a partition called the EFI system partition that stores some important files that the computer needs to read at boot time. The EFI system partition does not take up much space, typically taking up only a few hundred megabytes (mine is 100MB at the time of writing). Since this partition is required for booting, Windows does not allow you to remove it by default.
However, if you take an SSD or hard drive that was once your boot drive and want to completely reformat it for use as a data drive, you can get rid of the EFI system partition so you have one big partition for all your files. Using the simple instructions below, you can remove the EFI system partition in Windows 10 or 11. Just make sure you don’t do this on your boot drive or you won’t be able to boot!
How to remove the EFI system partition in Windows
1. Run Diskpart.
2. Enter disk list to see a list of all connected disks. The disk number you want to remove the disk from must match the one displayed in the Disk Manager application.
3. Enter install disk [Disk Number] where [Disk Number] is the number of the disk you want to remove from.
4. Enter a list of partitions.
5. Enter the selection option [PARTITION NUMBER] to select the reserved partition you want to delete.
6. Enter a delete section override.
At this point, the EFI System partition should be deleted. However, you must confirm this by viewing the disk in the Windows Disk Management application (download it by searching for “disk management”). If it still appears, reboot and check again.
