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Old 12-04-2022, 02:04 AM   #1
Matthew Wai
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Is the second EFI partition redundant?


Code:
Matthew_Wai@My-PC:~$ lsblk 
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 465.8G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   100M  0 part /boot/efi
├─sda2   8:2    0    16M  0 part 
├─sda3   8:3    0  70.4G  0 part /media/Matthew_Wai/Windows 10
├─sda4   8:4    0   499M  0 part 
├─sda5   8:5    0   300M  0 part 
├─sda6   8:6    0     4G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda7   8:7    0  75.7G  0 part /
└─sda8   8:8    0 314.8G  0 part
"sda1" was created automatically by "Windows Setup".
"sda5" was created manually by me just before I installed Linux.
Both are EFI partitions. Only "sda1" is present in "/etc/fstab" as shown below:
Code:
Matthew_Wai@My-PC:~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /dev/sda7
UUID=9c04423a-f1fa-4b10-a89d-c1d306fb50b0       /               ext4            rw,relatime     0 1

# /dev/sda1 LABEL=EFI\040system\040partition
UUID=F816-2029          /boot/efi       vfat            rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro  0 2

# /dev/sda6
UUID=a820f9da-9e3d-4215-ad17-11ada6c96053       none            swap            defaults,pri=-2 0 0
Am I right in thinking that "sda5" is redundant? If so, may I simply delete it?
 
Old 12-04-2022, 02:22 AM   #2
syg00
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthew Wai View Post
[CODE]Am I right in thinking that "sda5" is redundant? If so, may I simply delete it?
Only if it is empty.

If it isn't empty, it is potentially worse in that it may be lead to confusion to the system as well as you.
 
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Old 12-04-2022, 04:46 AM   #3
Matthew Wai
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Quote:
Originally Posted by syg00 View Post
Only if it is empty.
I used "gnome-disk-utility" to mount it. Then...
Code:
Matthew_Wai@My-PC:~$ lsblk 
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 465.8G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   100M  0 part /boot/efi
├─sda2   8:2    0    16M  0 part 
├─sda3   8:3    0  70.4G  0 part /media/Matthew_Wai/Windows 10
├─sda4   8:4    0   499M  0 part 
├─sda5   8:5    0   300M  0 part /media/Matthew_Wai/C80E-202D
├─sda6   8:6    0     4G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda7   8:7    0  75.7G  0 part /
└─sda8   8:8    0 314.8G  0 part /media/Matthew_Wai/HDD
The mount point is "/media/Matthew_Wai/C80E-202D" as shown above.
Code:
Matthew_Wai@My-PC:~$ ls /media/Matthew_Wai/C80E-202D
Matthew_Wai@My-PC:~$ sudo ls /media/Matthew_Wai/C80E-202D
[sudo] password for Matthew_Wai: 
Verification successful
Matthew_Wai@My-PC:~$
Is it empty?
 
Old 12-04-2022, 06:26 AM   #4
allend
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According to the UEFI specification (see section 5.3). the primary partition table is stored at the start of the disk and the backup partition table is stored at the end of the disk. The space in between is the usable space. Your sda5 partition will not have been used during Linux installation (only the primary partition table and backup partition table will have changed). As your sda5 shows as empty it can be safely removed.
 
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Old 12-05-2022, 12:21 AM   #5
mrmazda
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthew Wai View Post
Am I right in thinking that "sda5" is redundant? If so, may I simply delete it?
To confirm it's both unneeded and perfectly safe to remove, examine /boot/efi/EFI/. You should find directories there for Linux, for Windows, and likely one named BOOT. Each should contain at least one file used for booting.
 
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Old 12-05-2022, 05:12 AM   #6
Matthew Wai
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mrmazda View Post
examine /boot/efi/EFI/
Code:
Matthew_Wai@My-PC:~$ sudo ls /boot/efi/EFI/
[sudo] password for Matthew_Wai: 
Verification successful
Boot  Microsoft  ubuntu  UOS
 
Old 12-05-2022, 11:44 PM   #7
Debian6to11
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And it is better to use 'ls -a -l' to check again '/sda5' in case there are any hidden files in there.
 
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Old 12-06-2022, 12:21 AM   #8
Matthew Wai
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Debian6to11 View Post
And it is better to use 'ls -a -l' to check again '/sda5' in case there are any hidden files in there.
Code:
Matthew_Wai@My-PC:~$ sudo ls -a -l /media/Matthew_Wai/C80E-202D
[sudo] password for Matthew_Wai: 
Verification successful
total 8
drwxr-xr-x  2 Matthew_Wai Matthew_Wai 4096 Jan  1  1970 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 8 root        root        4096 Dec  6 14:18 ..
 
Old 12-06-2022, 07:49 PM   #9
computersavvy
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That shows the partition is definitely empty and as such can be removed if you want.

Make sure you unmount it before deleting.
 
  


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