Create a Windows 7 EFI partition, post install?

[ksherman]

Hey all,

I tried to be all slick and install Windows 7 from an eSATA drive. Went well, took all of 10 minutes to install Windows 7. Thing is, it seems the installation didn't create an EFI boot partition on the new drive, so I have to plug that eSATA drive in to boot.

Any way to make this EFI partition after the install so I don't need that drive to boot?

Thanks!
KS

 

[ViRGE]

If you don't have a partition, it's too late to make one and keep the existing partitions since you can't shrink forward. The best you can do is pop in the Win7 installer and do a Startup Repair, and see if it can write the appropriate startup data to the first drive.

 

[ksherman]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
If you don't have a partition, it's too late to make one and keep the existing partitions since you can't shrink forward. The best you can do is pop in the Win7 installer and do a Startup Repair, and see if it can write the appropriate startup data to the first drive.

Dang, I just can't win.. haha. Thanks.

 

[Modelworks]

The best way to get it to create the partition is not to have a partition on the drive that you select to install. Then it will create one.

 

[armstrda]

Actually I'm pretty sure it has to do with how your BIOS sets up your removabled boot disk (in this case the eSATA). Windows will install it's boot partition to the first listed HDD in the BIOS (regardless of where you install the actual OS). In your case, I'm assuming your BIOS setup your eSATA drive in a fixed drive mode and it was the first boot device because you booted from it. When Windows setup started, it labeled this drive as drive 0 and your internal SATA drive 1. So when you selected to install to your internal drive, Windows said OK but it installed the boot partition to the drive 0 (your eSATA drive). To get around this, you have to do 1 of 2 things. Use a USB HDD as your install source (BIOS and Windows won't ever set this to drive 0 as it's a removable drive). Or you need to force your BIOS to configure your eSATA drive as a removable storage media. The whole eSATA thing really clouds this picture of removable storage because it's controlled off your native internal drive storage controller, so it's difficult for BIOS/Windows to see that's actually a removable drive and not a fixed internal drive.