Windows Troubleshooting: Deleted Partition Now Won’t Boot

Why deleted partition now wont boot?

The "deleted partition now won't boot" issue is common and you are not the only one who did this. Maybe you were about to set up dual-boot, or perhaps you simply discovered a partition in Disk Management with no drive letter, but it took up a lot of space, so you wanted to free it up.

No matter why you deleted that partition, now you were in trouble – you had the Windows boot partition deleted, and now you could not get Windows to boot.

What on earth led to the situation here? If you look up the root of this problem, what type of partition you have deleted is the key. For convenience's sake, hard drives (GPT/MBR) are logically divided into several partitions to store different types of data, facilitating users to manage their data.

AOMEI Partition Assistant

The following illustrates the disk type and reason why deleted partition now wont boot. If you are in a hurry to get your Windows bootable, go directly toWindows troubleshooting in the next paragraph.

Download Demo
Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7

About GPT disk: 

For GPT hard drive users, in default, you are supposed to have these partitions as follows:

An EFI System Partition 

A Microsoft Reserved Partition

Primary Partitions 

Recovery Partition

On the one hand, EFI System Partition, also called ESP partition, stores the EFI boot loader and applications for firmware, which is necessary for Windows to boot – so you may have deleted this partition and led to an unbootable Windows.

On the other hand, primary partitions contain the files and data necessary for the operating system to boot; if you delete a primary partition that stores the boot files, the computer will be unbootable.

On the contrary, if you have removed a data partition, you can still perform GPT partition recovery with the help of partition recovery utilities.

About MBR disk

For MBR hard drive users, by default, you will have these partitions:

A System Reserved Partition 

4 Primary Partitions (Sometimes 3 primary partitions plus 1 extended partition, in which you can create several logical partitions) 

Recovery Partition

On the one hand, the System Reserved Partition contains boot configure data and system boot files, and it was created when the OS was installed. The files in it are necessary and need to be intact. If you delete this partition, then the computer cannot boot.

On the other hand, the primary partition, which is used to store boot files, cannot be deleted.

In a nutshell, likely, you may have accidentally deleted EFI partition, SRP partition, or primary partition, which contains boot files and is necessary for system startup.

Then, how to solve the problem "Deleted partition now won't boot"? Follow the tutorial below.

How to fix "deleted partition now won't boot"

Since you cannot get Windows to boot, we must get it bootable first. You might have learned that there are some commands for this issue, but we don't suggest you do so because it is pretty dangerous for users without sufficient knowledge.

For safety's sake, you might as well take advantage of an easy and helpful tool. AOMEI Partition Assistant allows you to create bootable USB, or CD/DVD to boot your computer and then recover deleted partition including the boot files quickly and safely.

Beforehand: Prepare a bootable USB or CD/DVD

To get the Windows bootable, we need to recover the deleted partition that Windows needs for boot. Still, prior to that, work is required beforehand – preparing a bootable USB or CD/DVD. Here let's utilize the "Make Bootable Media feature" in AOMEI Partition Assistant.

Easy to operate. An intuitive user interface, simple user guide, simple steps for bootable media creation, and other features. 

Compatible. Supports Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista/XP/Server. Windows Server users could upgrade it to Server Edition. 

Competitive. A sophisticated team with advanced technology developed it.

Download the free trial version to start troubleshooting.

Step 1. Run AOMEI Partition Assistant on a bootable computer > connect a USB stick > Tools > "Make Bootable Media"> "Next".

Step 2. Choose "USB Boot Device" and your drive from the drop-down menu> "Proceed".

Step 3. Click "Yes".

After that, you could get available bootable media to boot the computer. As a multi-functional tool, it can solve users' problems by rebuilding MBR to recover MBR partition table.

Troubleshoot: Recover deleted partition

With the bootable media get ready, we can move on to get things fixed.

No need to download any other software or type any commands; just using the USB stick preinstalled with AOMEI Partition Assistant when creating bootable media, you could fix the problem securely.

This time, the "Partition Recovery Wizard" feature will help.

Thanks to its Fast & Full Search method, this tool can assist users in recovering lost/deleted partitions from HDD/SSD/USB/SD card/memory card, etc. 

As an easy-to-operate utility, it requires no expertise in computer or partition recovery. 

It applies to all file systems like FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, ext4, ext3, etc. Users can easily retrieve ext4 partitions with this tool if they are using an ext4 partition.

Now follow the steps to recover your deleted partition.

Step 1. Connect the USB stick to the unbootable PC > change the boot order to boot from the USB.

Step 2. Preinstalled AOMEI Partition Assistant will lead you to the user interface > click Recover > Partition Recovery > choose the drive that has lost partition> Next.

Step 3. Choose a search method: Fast Search or Full Search. 

Step 4. When finished, with all lost partitions detected and listed, you can select the partition you have deleted > click Proceed.

Thus, you could get accidentally deleted partitions back with ease.

If there is any data loss on the deleted partition, try the Windows data recovery software -MyRecover to further retrieve data from your computer.

Bonus tips

With helpful information gathered in this tutorial, you could fix the problem "deleted partition now won't boot" safely and quickly without worrying about further damage. But precautions are better than hindsight.

From the very beginning, no partitions should be deleted when you are not aware of the results it will bring; What's more, in case you may delete a data partition in the future one day, backups are always the ones that can save you from the dilemma.

AOMEI Backupper, a good backup tool, will guard your data with its unique features "Disk Backup", "Partition Backup", "System Backup", etc.

AOMEI Partition Assistant

If you deleted partition now won't boot, try powerful partition recovery software - AOMEI Partition Assistant to recover your boot files. This is the easiest method!

Download Demo
Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7