Solved Please, help me increase the size of my EFI partition

Hello,

I have an HP Envy laptop and I cannot install the latest BIOS because the installer says that there is not enough space to complete the update. Since I have plenty of free disk space, I assume it means the EFI partition which is 100MB

Can you please help me increase the size of that partition to 500MB?

Thank you

Joanne said:

Hello,

I have an HP Envy laptop and I cannot install the latest BIOS because the installer says that there is not enough space to complete the update. Since I have plenty of free disk space, I assume it means the EFI partition which is 100MB

Can you please help me increase the size of that partition to 500MB?

Thank you


View attachment 97109View attachment 97110View attachment 97111

Click to expand...

Updating BIOS through Windows tools isn't recommended. Boot into the BIOS screen and flash the BIOS directly. Less chance of failure. Download the BIOS file from your laptop's support page

BrianInEngland said:

Updating BIOS through Windows tools isn't recommended.

Click to expand...

Why? The Windows installer for the BIOS is only a front end that sets up the BIOS update. The BIOS is not actually updated while in Windows. The system reboots to actually perform the update.

Thank you for your replies! :)

I have already tried to install the latest BIOS using my USB stick, which I have formatted as FAT32 but I cannot.

Specifically, I've tried to follow the instructions from this link ---> https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_4123786-2338478-16
where it says: Update the BIOS manually from a USB flash drive (outside of Windows)

It does not work!

According to that webpage:

1. Turn on the original computer, and then immediately press the esc key repeatedly, about once every second, until the Startup Menu opens.
2. Press the f2 key to open the HP PC Hardware Diagnostics UEFI menu.

When I do that, I am getting a BIOS menu which says that my HP PC Hardware Diagnostics UEFI needs to be updated. However, I am running the latest version. I am not getting that screen, where it says: Click Firmware Management or BIOS Management.

I can post photos tomorrow, if necessary, as I am in the UK and it is 21:15 now here.

If there's anyone with an HP laptop here and has encountered something similar, please advise.
I've also contacted HP Support, for which I am paying for an extra support plan, but they are completely useless and the worst customer service I've ever encountered!

The error message reported space problems but did not specify the partition.

The HP UEFI hardware diagnostics was a known problem preventing Windows upgrades.

It was previously installed in the EFI or system reserved partition.


1) Please run: Disk partition information > post a share link





2) Run the V2 log collector > post a share link

@zbook

Hello, thank you for your reply.

1) The link to Windows 10 Forums asks me to login and I cannot.

2) I have downloaded and tried to run the V2 log collector but I am getting the following error:

New-Item : Access to the path 'HP-ENVY-LAPTOP--(2024-05-23_21-40-57)' is denied.
At C:\Users\Me\Downloads\V2 log collector1.11\resources\main.ps1:186 char:1
+ New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $Path -Force | Out-Null
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : PermissionDenied: (C:\Users\Me\D...05-23_21-40-57):String) [New-Item], UnauthorizedAcces
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CreateDirectoryUnauthorizedAccessError,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.NewItemCommand

Please note that I have disabled Controlled Folder Access.


3) More importantly, I do not understand the meaning of your suggestions. Why do I need to run these tools and scripts?

Thank you

1) For V2:

a) Temporarily uninstall any non-Microsoft AV software


b) Make sure Microsoft defender is on

c) Click extract all before launching V2


2) For Disk partition information open administrative command prompt and copy and paste: (all at one time)


Post a share link.

possibly it wants to save a backup somewhere.

@zbook

Can you please explain what all these commands from your second suggestion will do exactly?

The V2 log collector is useful for troubleshooting.

The commands are all diagnostic and will provide information about disks, volumes, and partitions.

@zbook

Okay, thank you. Below you can see the results of the list of all those commands you asked me to run.
The V2 log collector, I was not able to run yet.

-------------

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.22631.3593]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\System32>reagentc /info
Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration
Information:

Windows RE status: Enabled
Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition4\Recovery\WindowsRE
Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 5b0044db-18da-11ed-9001-bc9fea9530a1
Recovery image location:
Recovery image index: 0
Custom image location:
Custom image index: 0

REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.


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-GB
inherit {globalsettings}
isolatedcontext Yes
default {current}
resumeobject {5b0044d8-18da-11ed-9001-bc9fea9530a1}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \WINDOWS\system32\winload.efi
description Windows 11
locale en-GB
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {5b0044db-18da-11ed-9001-bc9fea9530a1}
displaymessageoverride Recovery
recoveryenabled Yes
isolatedcontext Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \WINDOWS
resumeobject {5b0044d8-18da-11ed-9001-bc9fea9530a1}
nx OptIn
bootmenupolicy Standard
hypervisorlaunchtype Auto

C:\Windows\System32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.22621.1

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: HP-ENVY-LAPTOP-

DISKPART> lis dis

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 953 GB 3072 KB *

DISKPART> lis vol

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 C NTFS Partition 952 GB Healthy Boot
Volume 1 FAT32 Partition 100 MB Healthy System
Volume 2 NTFS Partition 840 MB Healthy Hidden

DISKPART> sel dis 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> det dis

SAMSUNG MZVLQ1T0HBLB-00BH1
Disk ID: {D9829F1B-4032-46BA-88E6-701F189E1A68}
Type : NVMe
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 0
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(0600)#PCI(0000)#NVME(P00T00L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : Yes
Pagefile Disk : Yes
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : Yes
Clustered Disk : No

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 C NTFS Partition 952 GB Healthy Boot
Volume 1 FAT32 Partition 100 MB Healthy System
Volume 2 NTFS Partition 840 MB Healthy Hidden

DISKPART> lis par

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 System 100 MB 1024 KB
Partition 2 Reserved 16 MB 101 MB
Partition 3 Primary 952 GB 117 MB
Partition 4 Recovery 840 MB 953 GB

DISKPART> sel par 1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> det par

Partition 1
Type : c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
Hidden : Yes
Required: No
Attrib : 0X8000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 1048576

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 1 FAT32 Partition 100 MB Healthy System

DISKPART> sel par 2

Partition 2 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> det par

Partition 2
Type : e3c9e316-0b5c-4db8-817d-f92df00215ae
Hidden : Yes
Required: No
Attrib : 0X8000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 105906176

There is no volume associated with this partition.

DISKPART> sel par 3

Partition 3 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> det par

Partition 3
Type : ebd0a0a2-b9e5-4433-87c0-68b6b72699c7
Hidden : No
Required: No
Attrib : 0X8000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 122683392

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 0 C NTFS Partition 952 GB Healthy Boot

DISKPART> sel par 4

Partition 4 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> det par

Partition 4
Type : de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
Hidden : Yes
Required: Yes
Attrib : 0X8000000000000001
Offset in Bytes: 1023326289920

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 2 NTFS Partition 840 MB Healthy Hidden

DISKPART> sel par 5

The specified partition is not valid.
Please select a valid partition.

There is no partition selected.

DISKPART> det par

------------

So, what do you make from all these?

1) When available please post a V2 share link into the newest post.

2) Run Tuneup plus > post a share link




3) Create a new restore point:

Didn't see it mentioned except that one Disk Management screenshot shows it is Bitlocker Encrypted, that can interfere with things.

This type of problems are very OEM (HP in this case) dependent. I´d search the HP information, knowledge bases, forums, etc. The assumption that the problem relates to the size of the ESP partition has no basis. The other suggestions are surely a waste of time.

I assumed and still assume that it has to do with my EFI partition being only 100MB because after Googling for this issue, that's what came up.
I was not able to find anything else related. HP Customer Service was horrendous.

Regarding BitLocker, it is suggested from HP to disable it, I did that but I was getting the same error of not enough free disk space.

It is almost midnight here in the UK. Tomorrow, I will post photos of the reason why I cannot install the latest BIOS from my USB stick.

Please, can anyone tell me if it is possible to increase the size of my EFI partition and how? I have posted a screenshot of my Disk Management. Is it possible, please? How?

Thank you

If you post the results for post #12 it can be troubleshooted now.

Might try first reducing the C: partition from the left then increase the first partition to include that newly-unallocated space. I usually boot a Linux Mint LiveUSB and use the GPARTED program on it to do partition manipulations.
This is my latest Notebook, D:/Disk 1 is a USB drive:

Joanne said:

I assumed and still assume that it has to do with my EFI partition being only 100MB because after Googling for this issue, that's what came up.
I was not able to find anything else related. HP Customer Service was horrendous.

Regarding BitLocker, it is suggested from HP to disable it, I did that but I was getting the same error of not enough free disk space.

It is almost midnight here in the UK. Tomorrow, I will post photos of the reason why I cannot install the latest BIOS from my USB stick.

Please, can anyone tell me if it is possible to increase the size of my EFI partition and how? I have posted a screenshot of my Disk Management. Is it possible, please? How?

Thank you

Click to expand...

Suspend bitlocker or decrypt.

This is a free space problem as per the error message and can be troubleshooted without altering the size of partitions.

@zbook

Here are the results of running Run Tuneup plus:

----------------

Microsoft Windows 11 Home Version 23H2 (OS Build 22631.3593)

==================================================================

Started on 24/05/2024 at 0:08:17.62

[SFC /ScanNow]

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

Results:

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

==================================================================

Started on 24/05/2024 at 0:10:19.81

[DISM /online /cleanup-image /ScanHealth]

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.22621.2792

Image Version: 10.0.22631.3593

No component store corruption detected.

The operation completed successfully.

==================================================================

Started on 24/05/2024 at 0:12:34.44

[DISM /online /cleanup-image /RestoreHealth]

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.22621.2792

Image Version: 10.0.22631.3593

The restore operation completed successfully.

The operation completed successfully.

==================================================================

The second "SFC /ScanNow" was skipped, as the first output the following:

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

==================================================================

Started on 24/05/2024 at 0:14:00.35

[ChkDsk /Scan]

The type of the file system is NTFS.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
637184 file records processed.
File verification completed.
Phase duration (File record verification): 6.34 seconds.
33072 large file records processed.
Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 21.53 milliseconds.
0 bad file records processed.
Phase duration (Bad file record checking): 0.03 milliseconds.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
754 reparse records processed.
977906 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
Phase duration (Index verification): 23.46 seconds.
0 unindexed files scanned.
Phase duration (Orphan reconnection): 945.66 milliseconds.
0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
Phase duration (Orphan recovery to lost and found): 0.07 milliseconds.
754 reparse records processed.
Phase duration (Reparse point and Object ID verification): 3.39 milliseconds.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Security descriptor verification completed.
Phase duration (Security descriptor verification): 62.03 milliseconds.
170362 data files processed.
Phase duration (Data attribute verification): 0.08 milliseconds.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
36976864 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.
Phase duration (USN journal verification): 177.71 milliseconds.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.

No further action is required.

999221247 KB total disk space.
180313376 KB in 230368 files.
313120 KB in 170363 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
780591 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
817814160 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
249805311 total allocation units on disk.
204453540 allocation units available on disk.
Total duration: 31.01 seconds (31015 ms).

==================================================================

Started on 24/05/2024 at 0:14:40.87

AutoReboot

TRUE

==================================================================

[Set AutoReboot = False]

Updating property(s) of '\\HP-ENVY-LAPTOP-\ROOT\CIMV2:Win32_OSRecoveryConfiguration.Name="Microsoft Windows 11 Home|C:\\WINDOWS|\\Device\\Harddisk0\\Partition3"'
Property(s) update successful.
==================================================================

AutoReboot

FALSE

==================================================================

DebugInfoType

3

==================================================================

[Set DebugInfoType = 7]

Updating property(s) of '\\HP-ENVY-LAPTOP-\ROOT\CIMV2:Win32_OSRecoveryConfiguration.Name="Microsoft Windows 11 Home|C:\\WINDOWS|\\Device\\Harddisk0\\Partition3"'
Property(s) update successful.
==================================================================

DebugInfoType

7

==================================================================

[WMIC PageFile list]

AllocatedBaseSize=2048
CurrentUsage=0
Description=C:\pagefile.sys
InstallDate=20220810183056.980689+060
Name=C:\pagefile.sys
PeakUsage=0
Status=
TempPageFile=FALSE

==================================================================

AutomaticManagedPagefile

TRUE

==================================================================

[Set AutomaticManagedPagefile = True]

Updating property(s) of '\\HP-ENVY-LAPTOP-\ROOT\CIMV2:Win32_ComputerSystem.Name="HP-ENVY-LAPTOP-"'
Property(s) update successful.
==================================================================

AutomaticManagedPagefile

TRUE

==================================================================

[BcdEdit /enum {badmemory}]

RAM Defects
-----------
identifier {badmemory}
isolatedcontext Yes

==================================================================

Finished on 24/05/2024 at 0:14:43.39
It took 6 minutes and 26 seconds to complete the operations.


--------

What do you make of those? I do not see any issue.

Berton said:

Might try first reducing the C: partition from the left then increase the first partition to include that newly-unallocated space. I usually boot a Linux Mint LiveUSB and use the GPARTED program on it to do partition manipulations.
This is my latest Notebook, D:/Disk 1 is a USB drive:

View attachment 97129

Click to expand...

I have tried for the first time, earlier today. The tool was called Mini Partition Wizard, I think. The problem was that I could only shrink my C:\ from the right side. This created unallocated space to the right. I could not shrink my C:\ from the left side to make space for EFI to be expanded.