Delete EFI partition on external drive.

Anonymous
2024-06-18T13:31:49+00:00

I've been having problems regarding SSD cloning. Macrium have been very helpful. It appears that I'm booting from the 2 installed internal hard drives (!?!).

It was working OK for ages but obviously something subsequently has happened.

It was recommended I clone to an external drive.

Fortunately I had a another SDD that I could use. I reformatted this and connected externally . Checked with file folder that it could be read and was empty. All good.

Used Macrium to clone but was concerned that if supposedly booting form 2 internal drives, what am I copying, and would it work?

It didn't!

Both drives had 3 partitions; An EFI System partition (100MB), Windows 11 Home partition (465 GB) and a Recovery Partition ((610MB)

To cut long story short, the external drive now consists of 2 partitions, The EFI partition and an unallocated partition.

The external SDD is no accessible !!. I get the message "You currently don't have permission to access this folder" and continuing, "You have been denied access to this folder" " to gain access to this folder you will have to use the security tab"

Don't understand what to do next.

Using Disk Management and right clicking on greyed out EFI partition gives a greyed out window

Can anyone help in getting this 'external' drive accessible again ?

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Recovery and backup

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  1. Ramesh 181.2K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2024-07-14T08:36:55+00:00

    We seem now to have system back to 'normal' whereby it is now using (motherboard) fitted MSI 390 SSD (disc 0). Thanks so much for all your help in getting to this stage.

    That's a great job. 👍

    I'd still like to have the option to boot from an image drive if required. Recommendation is for this to be an external. I believe I have cloned an image on a Samsung EVO.

    How would I do this? On boot, the Boot Manager screen only shows the one disk (Windows 11) even if I have connected the external image SSD. Can one add to Boot Manager ?

    The UEFI settings in your device look complicated, IMO. Play with the Boot order priorities setting. Try "UEFI USB Hard drive" after you connect that Samsung disk to USB.

    REF: https://www.msi.com/support/technical_details/DT_Boot_Priority

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-07-14T08:22:18+00:00

    Hi Remesh,

    WinRE; PC has windows recovery environment built into BIOS; wasn't aware of this and took some time to find out. For some reason it was disabled. I've Enabled it:-

    Image

    Having done this I removed the Samsung EVO and PC has successfully booted using MSI M390 (now disk 0)

    Image

    Image

    We seem now to have system back to 'normal' whereby it is now using (motherboard) fitted MSI 390 SSD (disc 0). Thanks so much for all your help in getting to this stage.

    I'd still like to have the option to boot from an image drive if required. Recommendation is for this to be an external. I believe I have cloned an image on a Samsung EVO.

    How would I do this? On boot, the Boot Manager screen only shows the one disk (Windows 11) even if I have connected the external image SSD. Can one add to Boot Manager ?

    *** EDIT ***

    I opened Macrium and this is what I see:-

    ![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/dbda100f-ac35-4ce1-88b3-624906034366?platform=QnA

    Any comment ? Particularly partition 4 !?!

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  3. Ramesh 181.2K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2024-07-08T15:42:42+00:00

    Hi majestic100,

    There are several causes for the Inaccessible boot device error. Ref: Stop error 7B or Inaccessible_Boot_Device troubleshooting

    Let's try rebuilding the BCD in Disk 1.

    Boot from the USB setup disk and enter WinRE Command Prompt.

    Run:

    • diskpart
    • list disk
    • select disk 1
    • list part
    • list vol

    Post the output.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-07-07T09:50:36+00:00

    Hi Remesh,

    Restored MSI M390 (original disk 1) to Desktop. Having reviewed cloning software looks like I have to make a decision on which to purchase. All are free to download, install and setup but soon as you want to clone, diverted to payment page. At one time you could trial (like Macrium). Do you know of any trial versions available ? or what would you recommend to purchase?

    Also on boot, no longer get option in boot manager to boot from (freshly) installed MSI (even if it would fail). System configuration just shows Samsung (disk 0). So remains booting from Samsung.

    Image

    Can I get system config/boot manager to 'see' MSI ??

    *** EDIT *** Success !. Managed to run Macrium Free. Have cloned Disc 0 (Samsung) to Disc 1 (MSI M390) successfully. However, when I remove Disc 0. System fails to boot with "Inaccessible Boot Device". Thus still booting from Samsung.

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-07-04T15:57:55+00:00

    I’ve tried macrium I’m but it hung up looking for activation code (?). Must of tried pre troubles since registered blocked from (another) trial. I’ll check out others. Thanks

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