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get rid of efi partition

hello!


i have a macbook pro mid 2012 13", running on macos x el capitan. i have a problem regarding this lingering efi partition in my mac which is hindering me from installing windows through bootcamp. i think this first showed up after i wiped out windows without using bootcamp. i have tried numerous methods but they have not worked at all. a lot of developments though have occurred since i last did those, and one is that it doesn't show up anymore on the bootable drives list when pressing option upon startup. another is that when doing diskutil list in terminal, instead of EFI type and a name EFI, it now shows "Apple_HFS" instead and doesn't have a name. it does have the same storage and the same disk number as the EFI partition had before it changed somehow...


here is a snippet of the diskutil list:


/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
  #:            TYPE NAME          SIZE    IDENTIFIER
  0:   GUID_partition_scheme     *250.1 GB  disk0
  1:   Apple_HFS                  209.7 MB  disk0s1
  2:   Apple_CoreStorage macOS    249.2 GB  disk0s2
  3:   Apple_Boot Recovery HD     650.0 MB  disk0s3
/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
  #:            TYPE NAME          SIZE    IDENTIFIER
  0:   Apple_HFS macOS           +248.8 GB  disk1
           Logical Volume on disk0s2
           BBDB92AB-136D-47BB-9186-6CB6A4C8B2CE
           Unencrypted


these are the commands i've used so far to try and fix the problem:


sudo mkdir /Volumes/EFI
sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/EFI
cd /Volumes/EFI/EFI
rm -rf Microsoft
rm -rf Boot (i saw it on some YT video and they said it might help)


please help me! thank you~

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.1

Posted on Jan 25, 2021 5:05 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 28, 2021 8:00 PM

I don't see the EFI partition in the output of the "diskutil list" command. The 209.7MB partition disk0s1 may at one time have been the EFI partition, but it isn't anymore since it is now an HFS partition. An EFI partition has a special ESP code to indicate it is an ESP (aka EFI) "system" partition plus an ESP/EFI partition will be formatted as FAT.


I think you need first make sure you have a good backup, then completely erase the whole physical drive and reinstall macOS and migrate/restore from a backup. Then use Boot Camp Assistant to start over with installing Windows.


Also in the future when providing the terminal commands used you should also provide the output as well. A screenshot or a copy & paste is best to ensure everything is accurately recorded. It doesn't help in this situation since your partitions are messed up and the easiest way forward is what I just described.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 28, 2021 8:00 PM in response to tristafé

I don't see the EFI partition in the output of the "diskutil list" command. The 209.7MB partition disk0s1 may at one time have been the EFI partition, but it isn't anymore since it is now an HFS partition. An EFI partition has a special ESP code to indicate it is an ESP (aka EFI) "system" partition plus an ESP/EFI partition will be formatted as FAT.


I think you need first make sure you have a good backup, then completely erase the whole physical drive and reinstall macOS and migrate/restore from a backup. Then use Boot Camp Assistant to start over with installing Windows.


Also in the future when providing the terminal commands used you should also provide the output as well. A screenshot or a copy & paste is best to ensure everything is accurately recorded. It doesn't help in this situation since your partitions are messed up and the easiest way forward is what I just described.

get rid of efi partition

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