Damaged or corrupted efi partition after windows 10 install

sparked
sparked Member Posts: 24 New User
in 2015 Archives

Okay, I had another post about this, but I decided I want to start a new thread as I've eliminated a great deal of things and feel i've narrowed this down to EFI boot partitions.  So here's the back drop on what caused it all. I had a perfectly fine working copy of windows10 dualbooted with Ubuntu. Both OS's worked just fine and I had no issues with rebooting. After updating to win10 everything was peachy, but there were some complications with grapchics drivers so I decided to do a clean install and just drop all of the old baggage, which did resolve THAT issue. However, when I did this, without thinking I just deleted ALL partitions and let windows installer recreate them. That included the efi boot partition. However, windows 10 must have done something wrong with the efi boot partition because after that I have not been able to do a proper restart from the OS. The issue persists through Ubuntu which I have installed alongside it. However! I can do a shutdown and power on just fine, and the issue ONLY happens when I attempt to reboot from an OS. I can restart from BIOS, and during the updates it will occasionally restart once, but consecutive restarts land me hanging at the ACER screen. I can hear the hdd park and it simply doesn't load the OS or the boot loader.  I feel I'm getting a little long winded, so I'll just mention what i've weeded out.

 

Checked and tested Ram - Ram is OK

Updated Bios - Bios is fine (restarted just dandy during the process)

Disabled faststartup - not the issue

Unplugged all usb devices - nope

Restarting in diagnostics mode - nope

safemode - nope

 

The only thing left I can think of is the one thing that I know for certain changed.. that efi boot partition.

 

Is there a way to repair this or recreate a new one in hopes that it'll get done right short of reinstalling everything?

Best Answer

  • sparked
    sparked Member Posts: 24 New User
    Answer ✓

    I know this is really old now, but I figured I probably shouldn't keep starting new threads for the same problem.

     

    So, I've gone through all this and no change. Cleaned the disk as instructed, tried straight linux, using the recovery disk I created to restore it to as it was from the factory, and win10 again but no dice on this. It still will not reboot. But, I remembered something I did around the same time that I'd forgotten because it seemed really trivial. I was having issues with my wifi connection dropping quite frequently and suspected interference so since the factory card did not offer 5ghz band, I replaced it with an Intel Ultimate-N card that I had lying around from a previous laptop. Would that possibly mess up rebooting? I wouldn't think that'd interfere with it but... it's the last thing that could have changed. Though, the laptop is an AMD model. So, hmm I guess I can try to swap it back to the factory card, now.

Answers

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    you can try to wipe your HDD completly, using command prompt and diskpart; it will take some hours to end it, this normally will wipe your HDD as it was from factory (not Acer but HDD manufacter).

     

    boot from windows 10 installation media

    choose repair your pc troubleshoot - Advanced options - Command Prompt
    once in command prompt type
    diskpart
    then on diskpart type
    list disk
    take note of the correct disk ID to erase
    type
    select disk x
    (x is the ID of your HDD to erase)
    type
    clean all
    type exit

     

    then proceed with windows 10 installation

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • sparked
    sparked Member Posts: 24 New User
    Answer ✓

    I know this is really old now, but I figured I probably shouldn't keep starting new threads for the same problem.

     

    So, I've gone through all this and no change. Cleaned the disk as instructed, tried straight linux, using the recovery disk I created to restore it to as it was from the factory, and win10 again but no dice on this. It still will not reboot. But, I remembered something I did around the same time that I'd forgotten because it seemed really trivial. I was having issues with my wifi connection dropping quite frequently and suspected interference so since the factory card did not offer 5ghz band, I replaced it with an Intel Ultimate-N card that I had lying around from a previous laptop. Would that possibly mess up rebooting? I wouldn't think that'd interfere with it but... it's the last thing that could have changed. Though, the laptop is an AMD model. So, hmm I guess I can try to swap it back to the factory card, now.

  • sparked
    sparked Member Posts: 24 New User

    I've solved the problem. It was not a corrupt EFI file, or hdd issue. It was actually a wireless nic I installed. Intel's Ultimate-N 6300 to be specific. Since removing that card and putting back in the original Atheros (which was having issues but since has had a driver update) the problem with rebooting has resolved it's self. My laptop now works fine.

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