The original post: /r/pcmasterrace by /u/zaphodx42 on 2025-02-12 09:17:46.

Hi, I’m a long time Mac user and just built my first PC in ~25 years. I’ve got to say that this was kinda challenging for me but everything worked out the way it should and it seems there are no hardware problems. After fighting to create a bootable USB on my mac I’ve finally done it with the unetbootin app and installed windows 11.

Now the problem I encounter is that during the installation it seems that the EFI System Partition was created on the USB drive so that I can only boot into Windows with the USB plugged in. I thought that I might have done something wrong and reinstalled windows a second time. Unfortunately the same thing happened and the bootloader is again located on the USB drive. I followed two different instructions I’ve found online and both times the same thing happened.

Installation takes forever so I just wanted to ask if anyone encountered such a problem and if the fix I found (create new EFI Partition on my SSD and copy files there) is a viable one or if I should install again. If so - how can I prevent this from happening again?

Even though this is a total pita I’m still thrilled that I’ve built a PC again …

Thanks for any inputs!