If the boot partition gets deleted, Windows will fail to boot. Don’t worry. This post will share with you practical solutions to recover accidentally deleted boot partition Windows 7/8/10/11.
Accidentally deleted system reserved partition or accidentally deleted EFI boot partition in Windows 7/8/10/11? Windows can't boot after deleting the system partition? Get to know what a boot partition is and the methods to recover an accidentally deleted boot partition in this post.
A boot partition is a primary partition in the Windows operating system that contains the boot loader and can assist you in booting the installed Windows operating system. In general, Windows has two common types of boot partitions: EFI system partition and system reserved partition. You could view them in Disk Management or other partition manager tools.
EFI System Partition (UEFI + GPT)
The EFI System Partition (ESP) is a partition on an HDD or SSD of a UEFI-based computer. It contains the boot loader and applications that will be used by UEFI firmware at boot time. If you accidentally deleted EFI System Partition in Windows 11/10/8/7, Windows will be unbootable due to losing necessary boot files.
System Reserved Partition (Legacy BIOS + MBR)
The System Reserved Partition is a partition on a BIOS-based computer. It includes the Boot Manager and Boot Configuration Database, and startup files used for BitLocker Drive Encryption. If you want to encrypt your system drive using Bitlocker, you don’t need to repartition the system drive. Besides, the System Reserved Partition also stores recovery environment data in Windows 10.
The boot partition is significant for Windows boot. If you accidentally deleted boot partition, you may wonder how to recover it. Luckily, you still have the chance to recover accidentally deleted boot partition and make Windows boot normally again.
You could make a bootable disk and recover accidentally deleted boot partition, or reinstall Windows without losing data. Get to know the detailed steps to perform partition recovery.
A professional partition recovery tool could help you make a bootable media and then recover accidentally deleted boot partition successfully. That is AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional!
AOMEI Partition Recovery Wizard, a built-in function in AOMEI Partition Assistant professional, allows users to recover deleted or lost partitions in Windows 11/10/8/7 even the Windows can’t boot.
AOMEI Partition Assistant is a versatile partition manager. You can use it to make basic partition management: resize the system partition, allocate space to other partitions, extend the NTFS system drive without rebooting, remove write protection from the hard drive, and so on. Besides, it has some advanced functions such as converters and wizards. It supports MBR/GPT conversion, dynamic/basic partitions conversion, Windows To Go Creator, App Mover, Bootable Media, etc.
To recover accidentally deleted boot partition in Windows 7/8/10/11, you need to download AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional in another bootable Windows computer and make a bootable USB drive and then perform partition recovery.
Step 1. Connect an empty USB drive to the healthy Windows computer, install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional on it. Click “Make Bootable Media” at the left panel of the main interface. Click “Next”.
Step 2. Select “USB Boot Device” in the following window and click “Proceed” to start the operation.
Step 3. Click “Yes” to confirm formatting the USB device and making a bootable media. When the process completes, the bootable media is ready to recover deleted boot partition.
Step 1. Connect the bootable USB drive to the computer that can’t boot. Change the BIOS boot priority and start the machine from the USB drive. The AOMEI Partition Assistant will start automatically when you log in.
Step 2. Click “Partition Recovery Wizard” on the left panel, and choose the hard drive which contains the boot partition. Click “Next”.
Step 3. Choose a search mode. You could try “Fast Search” for the first time, if it can’t find the deleted boot partition, use “Full Search”.
Step 4. After the search process completes, select the deleted boot partition in the list and click “Proceed”. When the partition recovery is done, the computer will boot normally again.
If you know how to reinstall Windows, but you don't want to lose data stored in the boot partition, you could make a backup first after accidentally deleting the System Reserved Partition or EFI System Partition even the computer can't boot. After reinstalling Windows, you could export the data you need in the backup files.
To complete it, you need backup and restore software like AOMEI Backupper to make a bootable media and create a system image backup.
Step 1. Download and install AOMEI Backupper on another health computer.
Step 2. You could make a bootable USB drive via AOMEI Backupper by clicking “Tools” > “Create Bootable Media”. Follow the creation wizard to make the bootable drive. Change the BIOS boot priority and start the computer from the USB drive.
Step 3. Create a system image backup. Select other logical partitions to store the backup files.
Step 4. Reinstall your Windows. Know more about how to reinstall Windows 7. Or you could ask for professional help.
Step 5. When your computer could boot normally, download and install AOMEI Backupper.
Step 6. Select “Tools” at the left sidebar and click “Explore Image”.
Step 7. Select the system backup from the list box and click “Next”.
Step 8. For system, partition, and disk backup images, you can assign drive letters for the partitions, and click “Next” to mount the image.
Step 9. For file backup images, the images will not be mounted as virtual drives. You can directly check the file structure in the image. And you could save the files and folders you want to a destination drive.
If you delete the System Reserved Partition, the Windows won’t boot normally because it stores the boot loader files. After deleting the system reserved partition and recovery partition, the “Launch Recovery Environment” option is inaccessible. You’ll need to use partition recovery tools to restore it if you don’t have any Windows installation media or want data to be lost.
In most cases, deleting a partition in Disk Management is simple. However, you cannot delete the EFI system partition in Windows because the "Delete Volume" option is grayed out. You could delete the EFI partition and System Reserved Partition via partition manager tools like AOMEI Partition Assistant. But it’s not recommended to delete the EFI partition or System Reserved Partition, because it will lead to Windows won’t boot. If you accidentally deleted EFI partition, you could use AOMEI Partition Assistant to recover like method 1 in this article.
Yes, you can delete the OEM reserved partition without causing any problems. OEM partitions are created by computer manufacturers and include some of the manufacturer's software or one-click factory restore settings. It consumes a lot of disk space and serves no purpose.