Active Partition?

[Guest LMO]

Aloha.

What's the point of marking a partition as active?

Thanks.

[Guest Jawade]

Re: Active Partition?

 

In article <6C9AA78E-7D7E-4A7A-B13C-A7421B5BD77E@microsoft.com>, LMO@discussions.microsoft.com

says...

> Aloha.

> What's the point of marking a partition as active?

> Thanks.

 

It's the first byte in the partition table in the MBR.

Active = 0x80, not active = 0x00. You can change it by a

diskeditor.

 

 

Met vriendelijke groeten, Jawade.

--

http://jawade.nl/ Veel vernieuwd! Diskeditors met MBR-rebuilders!

Bootmanager (+Vista +Linux), ClrMBR, SDir v DIRgrootte, POP3lezer,

DOS-Filebrowser, Kalender, Webtellers en IP-log, USB-stick tester.

>>>>>>> Interesse in e-roken? Zie de groep alt.e-roken.nl <<<<<<<<

[Guest Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Re: Active Partition?

 

 

"LMO" <LMO@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:6C9AA78E-7D7E-4A7A-B13C-A7421B5BD77E@microsoft.com...

> Aloha.

> What's the point of marking a partition as active?

> Thanks.

>

 

Marking a partition active tells the BIOS that this is the partition to be

used for the booting process.

[Guest John John (MVP)]

Re: Active Partition?

 

LMO wrote:

> Aloha.

> What's the point of marking a partition as active?

> Thanks.

 

As was mentioned by another poster the Active Partition is the one that

will be used to boot the operating system. A basic MBR disk needs a

primary active partition to be able to boot the computer, there can only

be one active partition on a basic disk but the active status can be

changed and assigned from one primary partition to another one.

 

If you are seeing this in the Disk Management tool and if this is the

disk where Windows is installed the partition labeled as the (System)

partition is the one that is set as active, it doesn't have an option to

be marked as active because it already is the active partition. Do not

remove the active flag from the System partition, you will not be able

to boot Windows if you remove the active flag from the System partition.

 

John

[Guest Andrew]

RE: Active Partition?

 

Its the boot partition.

 

"LMO" wrote:

> Aloha.

> What's the point of marking a partition as active?

> Thanks.

>

[Guest LMO]

RE: Active Partition?

 

I marked an external drive as active (an IDE 250GB USB drive). It showed up

in the Disk Management, but would not show up in MY Computer, until I marked

it as active. It is not powered on during the boot process. I turn it on when

I need that data on it. Does it matter whether it is marked active or not?

Doesn't seem to make a difference.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

"LMO" wrote:

> Aloha.

> What's the point of marking a partition as active?

> Thanks.

>

[Guest Lil' Dave]

Re: Active Partition?

 

Its a single bit. Its purpose is to let the bios know that a primary

partition exists to attempt to boot from.

 

In MS XP terminology, this partition is called the system partition.

--

Dave

 

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"LMO" <LMO@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:6C9AA78E-7D7E-4A7A-B13C-A7421B5BD77E@microsoft.com...

> Aloha.

> What's the point of marking a partition as active?

> Thanks.

>

[Guest Timothy Daniels]

Re: Active Partition?

 

Ey, Bra -

 

An external drive (providing that it isn't an eSATA drive) cannot

be involved in the booting process, so its "active" flag is irrelevant.

I am even surprised that it must be marked "active" to show up in

MyComputer.

 

*TimDaniels*

 

"LMO" wrote:

> I marked an external drive as active (an IDE 250GB USB drive). It showed up

> in the Disk Management, but would not show up in MY Computer, until I marked

> it as active. It is not powered on during the boot process. I turn it on when

> I need that data on it. Does it matter whether it is marked active or not?

> Doesn't seem to make a difference.

> Thanks for the feedback.

>

> "LMO" wrote:

>

>> Aloha.

>> What's the point of marking a partition as active?

>> Thanks.

>>

[Guest Timothy Daniels]

Re: Active Partition?

 

This is misleading. In Microsoft terminology, the partition that contains

the Boot Sector and which contains the boot.ini boot menu and the

ntldr boot loader and ntdetect.com environment detector - is called the

System partition. Also in Microsoft terminology, the partition that contains

the operating system that is to be loaded is called the Boot partition. It's

intuitively backwards, but it is that way for historical reasons. And in

WinNT, Win2K, and WinXP, the Boot partition and the System partitions

need not be the same partition and need not even be on the same hard drive,

and the Boot partition may even be within an Extended partition. That is,

the operating system may be loaded from a non-Primary partition. Only

the System partition (that contains the afore-mentioned boot files) must

be a Primary partition and marked "active", and be on the hard drive that

is at the top of the hard drive boot priority to boot the system.

 

*TimDaniels*

 

"Andrew" wrote:

> Its the boot partition.

>

> "LMO" wrote:

>

>> Aloha.

>> What's the point of marking a partition as active?

>> Thanks.

>>

[Guest Ken Blake, MVP]

Re: Active Partition?

 

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 20:24:31 -0700, "Timothy Daniels"

<NoSpam@SpamMeNot.com> wrote:

> This is misleading. In Microsoft terminology, the partition that contains

> the Boot Sector and which contains the boot.ini boot menu and the

> ntldr boot loader and ntdetect.com environment detector - is called the

> System partition. Also in Microsoft terminology, the partition that contains

> the operating system that is to be loaded is called the Boot partition. It's

> intuitively backwards, but it is that way for historical reasons.

 

 

What you say is of course correct, and unfortunately often

misunderstood, because it's the opposite of what people intuitively

expect, and they often therefore use the terms "Boot Partition" and

"System Partition" backwards.

 

If anyone doubts this, it can be verified at

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/

 

 

> And in

> WinNT, Win2K, and WinXP, the Boot partition and the System partitions

> need not be the same partition and need not even be on the same hard drive,

> and the Boot partition may even be within an Extended partition. That is,

> the operating system may be loaded from a non-Primary partition. Only

> the System partition (that contains the afore-mentioned boot files) must

> be a Primary partition and marked "active", and be on the hard drive that

> is at the top of the hard drive boot priority to boot the system.

>

> *TimDaniels*

>

> "Andrew" wrote:

> > Its the boot partition.

> >

> > "LMO" wrote:

> >

> >> Aloha.

> >> What's the point of marking a partition as active?

> >> Thanks.

> >>

>

 

--

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

Please Reply to the Newsgroup

[Guest Lil' Dave]

Re: Active Partition?

 

Can't argue with that after it's marked active. Timothy describes what MS

terminology is now regarding what an active partition is, the system

partition. Ken states what the population in general interprets as the boot

partition, not MS Candidly, this general opinion is sourced from the MS

versions of windows that had msdos as their base. Specifically, 3.x, 95

versions A, B, C, 98, 98SE and Millenium. Yes, you may install windows of

these versions on an alternate partition, but seldom done for many reasons.

Many former souls used to use msdos real mode in general, it was for intents

and purposes the boot partition. In a historical sense, MS swayed its

description of the boot partition. But, in the strict NT sense, it has not

changed. One may argue that many ways, XP is a big brother of Millenium.

True, Millenium was used as a test bed for many things embedded in XP. XP

is not based on msdos (Millenium), and uses a similar boot routine as NT and

2K, so the system partition description. How these diverged by partition

description at NT and msdos/windows remains to be a gray area. So, I

continue to call the active partition, the boot partition. MS: see the

defintion of partition in reference to booting.. MS ignores common sense as

usual. Case closed due to historical indifference of MS.

--

Dave

 

"Andrew" <Andrew@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:F1EAAC70-CD88-4500-A0E7-C583B5203029@microsoft.com...

> Its the boot partition.

>

> "LMO" wrote:

>

>> Aloha.

>> What's the point of marking a partition as active?

>> Thanks.

>>

[Guest Ken Blake, MVP]

Re: Active Partition?

 

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:47:24 -0500, "Lil' Dave"

<spamyourself@virus.net> wrote:

> Can't argue with that after it's marked active. Timothy describes what MS

> terminology is now regarding what an active partition is, the system

> partition. Ken states what the population in general interprets as the boot

> partition, not MS Candidly, this general opinion is sourced from the MS

> versions of windows that had msdos as their base. Specifically, 3.x, 95

> versions A, B, C, 98, 98SE and Millenium. Yes, you may install windows of

> these versions on an alternate partition, but seldom done for many reasons.

> Many former souls used to use msdos real mode in general, it was for intents

> and purposes the boot partition. In a historical sense, MS swayed its

> description of the boot partition. But, in the strict NT sense, it has not

> changed. One may argue that many ways, XP is a big brother of Millenium.

 

 

Back in the days of Windows Millennium, there were two lines of

Windows. One was 95, 98, Me (ending with Me). The other was NT, 2000,

(and continuing with XP and Vista). So Millennium was in the other

line entirely, and not really a predecessor for XP.

 

--

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

Please Reply to the Newsgroup

[Guest Bill in Co.]

Re: Active Partition?

 

Agreed. I don't see any true relationship between ME and XP, whatsover.

ME was the end of the 9x series.

 

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:

> On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:47:24 -0500, "Lil' Dave"

> <spamyourself@virus.net> wrote:

>

>> Can't argue with that after it's marked active. Timothy describes what

>> MS

>> terminology is now regarding what an active partition is, the system

>> partition. Ken states what the population in general interprets as the

>> boot

>> partition, not MS Candidly, this general opinion is sourced from the MS

>> versions of windows that had msdos as their base. Specifically, 3.x, 95

>> versions A, B, C, 98, 98SE and Millenium. Yes, you may install windows

>> of

>> these versions on an alternate partition, but seldom done for many

>> reasons.

>> Many former souls used to use msdos real mode in general, it was for

>> intents

>> and purposes the boot partition. In a historical sense, MS swayed its

>> description of the boot partition. But, in the strict NT sense, it has

>> not

>> changed. One may argue that many ways, XP is a big brother of Millenium.

>

>

> Back in the days of Windows Millennium, there were two lines of

> Windows. One was 95, 98, Me (ending with Me). The other was NT, 2000,

> (and continuing with XP and Vista). So Millennium was in the other

> line entirely, and not really a predecessor for XP.

>

> --

> Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

> Please Reply to the Newsgroup