EFI partitions, Go big or go home

Maybe I’m late to the party on this one… but I now know more about EFI partitions than I ever wanted to.

Recently, I discovered how important it is to enlarge the EFI partition on a newer Lenovo laptop with an AMD 300-series chipset. This tip might help anyone using the latest AI-optimized Intel or AMD CPUs, though results may vary. When I received the new PC, I wiped the manufacturer’s OS with Microsoft’s Media Creation Tool and installed a fresh copy of Windows 11. The problem was that my imaging tool was outdated by a year or two, creating only a 100MB EFI partition. The updated Microsoft version in 2025 now creates a 200MB EFI partition. I faced two main issues: the OS was very unstable (blue-screening), and updating the BIOS firmware was impossible despite trying everything. A Lenovo forum mentioned that 260MB EFI partitions are becoming common on their newer models, indicating that larger EFI partitions are the trend. After updating my Media Creation Tool and enlarging the EFI partition to 200MB, everything ran way smoother, and the updates just worked without a glitch. I hope this helps others facing similar problems and saves them time troubleshooting. It took me way too long to realize this issue and that I just needed to increase the EFI partition size. Once I did, everything performed perfectly, and everything feels more stable.

All the best.