How to recover files on EFI boot partition

Question

I have a laptop with Windows 7. When I try to install Fedora I delete Efi boot partition. Then I again created it. Then I remove Fedora and now nothings work. How to recover files on EFI boot partition. All Windows partitions are on the disk.

Answer 1

It sounds like you deleted your EFI System Partition (ESP) and then created a new ESP in the same space occupied by the original. If so, files written to the replacement ESP may well have overwritten files stored on the original ESP, making recovery of the original files impossible. If you're very very lucky, though, you might be able to recover some or all of the original files with a tool like PhotoRec; however, PhotoRec does a poor job of recovering filenames, so you'll be left spending a lot of time sifting through files and guessing at filenames. There may be a similar tool that does a better job at recovering filenames, but if so, I don't know what it is.

Chances are you'll do better to boot a Windows recovery disc and have it restore the Windows boot loader to the ESP. I can't provide detailed instructions on doing this, since I'm not very familiar with the relevant tools, but I know they can do the job. One caveat: Before you begin, be sure that the ESP uses a FAT32 filesystem. Fedora often creates a FAT16 ESP, and the Windows installer doesn't much like that. I imagine that the Windows recovery tools might also dislike a FAT16 ESP.