Fixed: Deleted Partition Now Won’t Boot on Windows

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. The deleted partition types matter for the root cause of this problem. For convenience's sake, hard drives (GPT/MBR) are logically divided into several partitions to store different data types.

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 are necessary for Windows to boot. So, deleting this partition will make your system unbootable. 

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

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 configuration data and system boot files, 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 "deleted partition now won't boot"?  We will show a step-by-step guide below, just scroll down to learn more. 

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

Since you cannot get Windows to boot, we must get it bootable first. You may already know some commands to handle 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 a bootable USB, or CD/DVD to boot your computer and then recover deleted partition quickly and safely.

Create a bootable USB or CD/DVD to boot from 

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.

Download the free trial version to start troubleshooting. The USB stick needs to be formatted to create bootable media. 

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A reliable partition recovery software for Windows 7, 8/8.1, 10, 11, and server.

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Step 1. Run AOMEI Partition Assistant on a bootable computer. Connect a USB stick and be sure it's recognized.

Step 2. Under the Tools tab, click "Make Bootable Media".

Step 3. Choose "USB Boot Device" and your drive from the drop-down menu. Click "Proceed" > "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.

Recover deleted partition from bootable media

With the bootable media 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 can fix the problem securely.

This time, the "Partition Recovery" wizard will help.

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. Click Recover >Partition Recovery while accessing AOMEI Partition Assistant, and then choose the drive that has lost partition.

Step 2. Choose a search method: Fast Search (Recommended) or Full Search.

⚠️Note: By comparison, Full Search scans profoundly and thoroughly and correspondingly takes longer. It's recommended when Fast Search fails.

Step 3. 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 - AOMEI FastRecovery to further retrieve data from your computer.

Bonus tips

With helpful info 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.