Question abt converted MBR to GPT boot drive

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I have apparently successfully converted my “C” drive from MBR to GPT. I now have a vey small “EFI” partition(299MB) on the drive along with a somewhat larger(800MB) NTFS partition. Is this normal and do I need the NTFS partition?

Thank you.

 

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The answer to both questions is “yes”.  The EFI holds the boot files, the NTFS your Windows installation, unless you mean the 800Mb extra to that. If that is the case I would have to say leave it alone – you can render systems unbootable, or recovery methods ineffective, by reordering or creating partitions. It’s not always obvious or possible to fix it either!

The layout you have only differs from the UEFI layout Microsoft indicate on the page below as the MSR isn’t a “normal” partition – more a sort of scratch space which is desirable, but not worth risking breakage of the disk structure to achieve (as Microsoft can’t tell if you have an OEM recovery solution, or how that might operate, and such a solution trying to operate on the wrong partition [if a partition were added] would potentially fail.)

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/configure-uefigpt-based-hard-drive-partitions

 

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Thanks for answering; everything is working properly and I will leave well enough alone.

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Peaches,

As Old Guy stated you can pooch your system IF you delete the wrong thing.

However, that said, I just recently went through all of my Dell systems and deleted all of the “Junk” Partitions! I now have a nice clean drive structure as shown below.

Not the Fine Print in Not So Fine Print!

• You don’t attempt this unless you have good IMAGE BACKUPS and have tested them so you KNOW you can successfully restore from them.
• You have a TESTED BOOT USB or CD with your Imaging software that you have also tested so you KNOW it will boot and you can run your Imaging software to restore your drive.
• You have, and know how to use, a good Partition Editing tool.
  I recommend Mini Tool Partition Wizard Portable Free.

I recommend you do this one step at a time.

1. Turn off Windows Reserved Storage.
2. Make sure you know which Partition is your Boot partition (You NEVER delete this partition!).
3. Looking at the image above you can see that the C: drive is my BOOT partition. On some systems it may NOT be C: so be sure to check.
4. You also NEVER delete the EFI Partition!
5. You also don’t delete your Lettered Partitions!
6. Most other partitions are candidates for deletion.
7. So use your Partition Editing tool to delete partitions starting at the right or (end of drive).
8. After EACH deletion REBOOT your machine to insure that you haven’t pooched it! At this point I also would take a NEW IMAGE of the drive so if a later deletion pooches the drive you don’t have to start all over.
9. Wash, Rinse, Repeat… Until you’ve deleted all the unwanted partitions and are sure that you can still boot. If you haven’t taken images along the way MAKE SURE YOU DO NOW!
10. Now go back into your Partition Editing tool and add the empty space to the lettered partitions of your choice, again here I’d Reboot after each change and ReImage!

REMEMBER from here on our you’re depending on your IMAGES for recovery from problems so make sure you keep them up to date and also that you have more than one copy on different devices just-in-case!

I hope this little guide helps those who are interested in this process. Make sure you are familiar with your Imaging Software and Partition Editing tool and remember this is not for the technophobic loungers out there!

HTH 😎

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Your post is very impressive, however in light of the fact that my junk partitions are very small and everything is working just fine, just call me chicken…..besides there are some things I am not good at…mucking around in the BIOS and hard drives and partitions.

Just doing the TPM, MBR to GPT and then Secure Boot was a major accomplishment for me. There are some folks here I’m sure will be willing to go for the junk partitions, but I for one recognize my shortcomings and there are a few. 😉

PeachesP

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I’m guessing you had one of those builds with a largish recovery partition 4 and a separate image partition 5 with a nice fat disk image under factory\dell or similar on that drive. (often there’s also an image of the boot partition as well though one poached from another machine seems to “work”) – They’re WIM images; have successfully rebuilt with these (with DISM) on a replacement drive having partitioned it in the usual layout. That’s if you want all the extra software, of course

If you ever do use the Dell software (download and update)  might be worth tracking down the fixes for CVE-2021-21571, CVE-2021-21572 and CVE-2021-21551. There seemed to be a lot of discussion about these and then absolutely nothing much about there being a solution. Of course if you don’t use Dell update you have one problem nailed, but never find out about the other!

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