Forum Thread: Kali Install & EFI Partition Question

Hey everyone,
So I've recently gained interest in I.T. and NullByte threads and thus attempted at installing Kali.

I'll try to keep the noobish question "short" :

I'm currently running windows 7, had installed ubuntu in dual boot before and then deleted it. I supposedly removed the grub with easyBCD and then deleted the partitions. All the partitions but a remaining 200Mo EFI one that windows doesn't let me manage.

I have only one disk and 3 partitions on it (screenshot at the end)

Now when installing Kali using the full ISO burnt on a DVD and "P2 MATSHITDVD" boot option ("UEFI MATSHITDVD" just greets me with a black screen), it says Kali "was succesfully installed" so I just remove the DVD and reboot but it just boots on Windows.

When going into the boot options I have :

  • Windows
  • ubuntu
  • P2 (MATSHITDVD)
  • UEFI (MATSHITDVD)

"ubuntu" option shouldn't be there anymore and it keeps getting back when manually deleting the boot option.

So I thought the 200Mo EFI Partition's content could be reponsible for this and preventing another linux distro to set a boot option somehow.

Of course the the disk manager doesn't let me delete it and neither does DISKPART ("Deleting a partiton is forbidden on the active boot, system, fime sharing volume" along those lines).

here's a screen of my disk management (in french) :

Obviously the nuclear option would be saving everything, burning windows7, DBANing the disk and starting it all over but I'm trying to use a more flexible option yet :)

TL:DR :
Might the EFI partition alone be causing Kali to fail its full install?
Is there a way to delete an EFI partition on the disk without wiping everything else?

Thanks.

4 Responses

EFI is a partition which loads UEFI firmware, and that uses the ESP to start the kernel and to boot your OS. This partition is there for you to be able to operate your PC.

What you really need to do is free up some disk space from your Windows partition, then create a new partition and install Kali on it.

Also, are you sure that your Kali installation was occurring on your hard drive and not the CD itself?

TRT

Thanks for your answer.
Ok my bad I had read only Linux/MacOS were using it, apparently was wrong.

My windows OS partion is C:.

What I did is cut the D: partition in half and install Kali on the free one. I forgot to mention this screenshot was taken after deleting the Kali partitions.

so Kali was definitely installed on the hard drive. (the CD isn't large enough for the full install anyway).

I chose the D: partition because it had 400 GB of free space while the C: one "only" has 170 GB.

To be honest I'm not sure to understand why it would work by cutting the C: partition. In the end C: and D: are on the same hard disk so once the partition is created from any of those does it matter where the free space comes from ?

It doesn't matter where the space comes from. That partition, though, must be formatted as FAT32 rather than NTFS to make it bootable on systems complying with UEFI (e.g. Windows 7, Kali Linux).

TRT

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