Windows 11 installed without all partitions?

Kaizen777 · Apr 6, 2024

Hello!

I have two SSDs in my system.
A 2TB that was my main Win11 drive previously.
A 4TB I recently installed.
I cloned the 2TB to the 4TB and used the 4TB as my main Win11 drive.
I left the clone on the 2TB drive for backup purposes, with no issues.

Yesterday I decided to do a fresh install of Windows 11 on my 4TB SSD.
Everything seemed to go okay. During setup I erased all the partitions on the 4TB SSD.

I now get a boot menu asking me which drive with Win11 to load.

My question / concern is, the 4TB SSD only has two partitions:

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Reserved 16 MB 1024 KB
Partition 2 Primary 3726 GB 17 MB

The 2TB SSD has four!

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 System 100 MB 1024 KB
Partition 2 Reserved 16 MB 101 MB
Partition 3 Primary 1862 GB 117 MB
Partition 4 Recovery 718 MB 1862 GB

How is it that Win11 seems to be running fine with the two partitions?
Shouldn't I be concerned about this, no recovery partition for the 4TB drive?
Is there a way to fix this without reinstalling Win11 again? Even then, I didn't see how to coax it to make all the partitions, it did what it did.

Thanks!

idgat · Apr 6, 2024

Kaizen777 said:
Shouldn't I be concerned about this, no recovery partition for the 4TB drive?

Not if you instigate a proper image style regular backup regime.

Kaizen777 · Apr 6, 2024

Fair, what scared me in the first place was that Macrium Reflect gives me this warning. Can I just restore the windows partition in a pinch and not worry about the rest?

idgat said:
Not if you instigate a proper image style regular backup regime.

Ghot · Apr 6, 2024

@Kaizen777

Open a command prompt as Admin, and run these commands...

And please post a screen shot of Disk Management stretched out so we can read everything... like so...

Macrium Reflect, AOMEI Backupper and Hasleo Backup Suite - GUIDES

How to use backup software... 1. When everything is working perfectly... make a full Windows backup. 2. Then, if something breaks... restore from the latest backup. 3. Then... try "whatever you were doing" a different way. If it still breaks Windows, then... go to step #2. 4. Repeat...

www.elevenforum.com

idgat · Apr 7, 2024

Kaizen777 said:
Fair, what scared me in the first place was that Macrium Reflect gives me this warning. Can I just restore the windows partition in a pinch and not worry about the rest?

Are you backing up the entire drive or just selected partitions. I have deleted my recovery partition and don't get that message from MReflect.

Ghot · Apr 7, 2024

idgat said:
Are you backing up the entire drive or just selected partitions. I have deleted my recovery partition and don't get that message from MReflect.

Same. A clone should have been an exact one to one copy.
A backup should include all the partitions required to "boot" Windows.

Ghot · Apr 7, 2024

Kaizen777 said:
Yesterday I decided to do a fresh install of Windows 11 on my 4TB SSD.
Everything seemed to go okay. During setup I erased all the partitions on the 4TB SSD.

When you did the clean install, you should have (if possible) disconnected all other drives.
That way, the clean install will have all four partitions.

I believe what happened is that when you did the clean install... the Windows installer decided to use the EFI System partition (and the Recovery partition), of the 2TB drive, which is why you don't see it on the 4TB drive.

The only partitions "required" to boot Windows are the Windows partition and the EFI System partition.

The reason we want our backups to have all partitions required to boot Windows... is so that if Windows won't boot, we can restore from our backup... and it will... boot.

idgat · Apr 7, 2024

Retry as image > restore then use Minitool to re-size the non-systems partitions to suit the larger drive

Edit On the clean install event, was it really a clean install? Did you physically delete all the old partitions off the drive leaving it totally in an "unallocated" state before commencing the clean install??

idgat · Apr 7, 2024

Ghot said:
When you did the clean install, you should have (if possible) disconnected all other drives.
That way, the clean install will have all four partitions.

I believe what happened is that when you did the clean install... the Windows installer decided to use the EFI System partition (and the Recovery partition), of the 2TB drive, which is why you don't see it on the 4TB drive.

Aaah!! Doh!! Of course, this ... ^^^^^

Ghot · Apr 7, 2024

idgat said:
Did you physically delete all the old partitions off the drive leaving it totally in an "unallocated" state before commencing the clean install??

Yes he did. See the first post.

Yesterday I decided to do a fresh install of Windows 11 on my 4TB SSD.
Everything seemed to go okay. During setup I erased all the partitions on the 4TB SSD.

SIW2 · Apr 7, 2024

It is not a big issue. reagentc -disable then create an esp partition on the 4tb and populate it using bcdboot command. Optionally create a ms recovery partition on the 4tb then reagentc -enable.

glasskuter · Apr 7, 2024

Without a screenshot of disk management, it's impossible to tell for sure but I'm betting it saw the EFI partition on the second drive and wrote your BCD to that drive rather than creating an EFI partition on the drive you installed windows on and writing BCD to the C: partition of your system drive where it belongs.. This is why you never do a clean install without removing all drives except what will be your system drive.. There are many threads here about it. See step 2 here Clean Install Windows 11 Tutorial

idgat · Apr 7, 2024

It started with Windows 7 and ever since - in one fashion or another - Windows has continued this habit during installation of leaving its hand/footprint on any other connected drive

I use the analogy of a little puppy in the park, if there's more than one tree around, Fido will find the others and leave his mark. The only way to prevent this to remove all the other trees and maintain a tight leash. My process is also to create a small partition (50GB Win 10, 60GB Win 11) in which to install the initial basic setup.

Kaizen777 · Apr 7, 2024

@Ghot

Strange that this shows 0 B free on disk 2 when Windows shows 3.45 TB free.
My new Win 11 install is on disk 2. The old one is disk 3.

Also strange that disk management doesn't show the 16MB reserved partition on Disk 2 that diskpart shows (listed on my initial post)

Ghot · Apr 7, 2024

@Kaizen777

Yep... the Windows Install on the 4TB drive, is using the EFI System partition on the 2TB drive.
And the 2TB drive's Recovery partition as well.

You can fix it all by temporarily unhooking Disk 0, 1, 3 and reinstalling (clean install), Win 11 on the 4TB drive.
The way it is now... if you ever format the 2TB... the 4TB will no longer boot.

Disk Management is a little bit dumbed down by Microsoft.
Most of us use this... it will show you everything.

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Wizard Free

As an all-in-one free partition manager and disk manager software, MiniTool Partition Wizard Free helps manage disk space safely on Windows 11/10/8/7.

www.partitionwizard.com

zbook · Apr 7, 2024

1) What is your preferred drive for Windows?
a) the faster drive
b) the larger drive

2) Run disk par info > post a share link

Batch files for use in BSOD debugging - Windows 10 Help Forums

Information This thread is for use by the BSOD team to store batch files that can be used to collect additional data, fix settings or anything else that is useful in debugging BSOD problems in Windows 10. The way I see it working is the first

www.tenforums.com

Batch files for use in BSOD debugging - Windows 10 Help Forums

Information This thread is for use by the BSOD team to store batch files that can be used to collect additional data, fix settings or anything else that is useful in debugging BSOD problems in Windows 10. The way I see it working is the first

www.tenforums.com

3) Disk management does not typically display hidden partitions (the reserved partition).

4) Run each > post share links
a) Crystal disk info
b) Crystal disk mark

CrystalDiskMark

About CrystalDiskMark CrystalDiskMark is a simple disk benchmark software. Download Standard Edition Aoi Edition Shizuku Edition System Requirements OS Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019/2022 Architecture x86/x64/ARM64 Key Features Important Notice -> FAQ Unit M...

crystalmark.info

CrystalDiskInfo

About CrystalDiskInfo A HDD/SSD utility software which supports a part of USB, Intel RAID and NVMe. Aoi Edition Standard Edition Shizuku Edition Kurei Kei Edition Download System Requirements OS Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019/2022 Architecture x86/x64/ARM64...

crystalmark.info

Kaizen777 · Apr 7, 2024

Thank you all for your responses!
I had this thought myself, that perhaps the new install was leaning on my previous install somehow.
Seems they are now joined at the hip!
I would have removed the other drive, it's just that these are both M.2 and that's a hassle.
I will do it again if needed, but I have most of my core programs installed and everything is working beautifully.

ChatGPT 4 told me I can create an EFI partition with these steps. Does this look legit or is it hallucinating (as it often does)?

"Given your scenario, where you have Windows 11 installed on a second SSD and it boots correctly, but lacks an EFI partition, you can indeed create an EFI partition on the second SSD. Since your system is already booting, it's likely using the EFI partition from the first SSD. To ensure your current Windows 11 installation can boot independently, you'll need to create an EFI partition on the second SSD and configure the bootloader. Here's how you can do it:

Check for Existing EFI Partition:
- First, ensure there is indeed no EFI partition on the second SSD. You can check this by opening Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) and looking for a small partition (usually 100-500 MB) formatted as FAT32 on the second SSD.
Shrink an Existing Partition (if necessary):
- If there's no unallocated space on the second SSD, you'll need to shrink an existing partition to create space for the EFI partition. You can do this in Disk Management by right-clicking on a partition and selecting "Shrink Volume". Ideally, you need around 100-500 MB of space.
Create the EFI Partition:
- Since Windows Disk Management does not allow creating EFI partitions directly, you’ll need to use a command-line tool. Open Command Prompt as administrator and use diskpart.
  luaCopy code
  diskpart
  list disk
  select disk X (X is the number of your second SSD)
  create partition efi size=100
  format quick fs=fat32
  assign letter=S
  exit
Copy EFI Data to the New EFI Partition:
- Now, you need to copy the EFI data from the existing EFI partition on the first SSD to the new EFI partition on the second SSD. You can use a tool like Robocopy from an elevated Command Prompt:
  sqlCopy code
  robocopy X:\EFI S:\EFI /E (replace X: with the letter of the current EFI partition)
Configure the Bootloader:
- Use the bcdboot command to copy boot files to the new EFI partition and update the BCD store:
  bashCopy code
  bcdboot C:\Windows /s S: /f UEFI (replace C: with the drive letter where Windows is installed)"
Update the BIOS Boot Order:

Ghot · Apr 7, 2024

Kaizen777 said:
ChatGPT 4 told me I can create an EFI partition with these steps

Good enough.
I believe that @SIW2 can assist with ChatGPT's advice if needed.
He, among others, is familiar with that process.

Kaizen777 · Apr 7, 2024

zbook said:
1) What is your preferred drive for Windows?
a) the faster drive
b) the larger drive

2) Run disk par info > post a share link

Batch files for use in BSOD debugging - Windows 10 Help Forums

Information This thread is for use by the BSOD team to store batch files that can be used to collect additional data, fix settings or anything else that is useful in debugging BSOD problems in Windows 10. The way I see it working is the first

www.tenforums.com

Batch files for use in BSOD debugging - Windows 10 Help Forums

Information This thread is for use by the BSOD team to store batch files that can be used to collect additional data, fix settings or anything else that is useful in debugging BSOD problems in Windows 10. The way I see it working is the first

www.tenforums.com

3) Disk management does not typically display hidden partitions (the reserved partition).

4) Run each > post share links
a) Crystal disk info
b) Crystal disk mark

CrystalDiskMark

About CrystalDiskMark CrystalDiskMark is a simple disk benchmark software. Download Standard Edition Aoi Edition Shizuku Edition System Requirements OS Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019/2022 Architecture x86/x64/ARM64 Key Features Important Notice -> FAQ Unit M...

crystalmark.info

CrystalDiskInfo

About CrystalDiskInfo A HDD/SSD utility software which supports a part of USB, Intel RAID and NVMe. Aoi Edition Standard Edition Shizuku Edition Kurei Kei Edition Download System Requirements OS Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019/2022 Architecture x86/x64/ARM64...

crystalmark.info

1) The larger SSD is the faster one ; )
Here is this, I will work on the rest...

Kaizen777 · Apr 7, 2024

Ghot said:
Good enough.
I believe that @SIW2 can assist with ChatGPT's advice if needed.
He, among others, is familiar with that process.

That, or perhaps I can image my new Win11 partition to another drive, disconnect the other Win11 drive, reinstall Win11 on this drive (ensuring the EFI partition is created this time), reconnect the other Win11 drive, boot into that one, replace the new Win11 partition with the one I imaged? Not sure if that would work. Perhaps that is more difficult than the ChatGPT suggestion.