The EFI System partition (ESP) is a partition on a data storage device that is used by machines that adhere to the Extensible Firmware Interface. It contains the boot loader programs for all operating systems installed (in other partitions) on the device, device driver files (used by the firmware at boot time) for other devices, and system utility programs that are intended to be run before an operating system is booted.
The EFI System partition is formatted using the FAT12, FAT16 or FAT32 file system. The globally unique identifier for the EFI System partition in the GUID Partition Table scheme is C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B. Its ID in the MBR partition table scheme is 0xEF. Whether a disk contains an EFI System partition is unrelated to the partition table scheme (GPT or MBR) that it uses.
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—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)