If you are planning on making any changes to your computer’s operating system, it is important to first determine which partition is the active one. This can be done by using the Windows Disk Management tool. If the active partition is not the C: drive, then you will need to change the active partition. ..
- The partition will be marked as active when it is either the active or the last partition in the list.
- If there are more than one active partition, then they will all be marked as active.
- If a partition is marked as inactive, it means that it is not currently in use and should not be touched.
In order for the system to boot properly, it is necessary to have a partition active and set up correctly.
When a computer starts up, it looks for an active partition on the primary partitions. The boot sector, located at the beginning of the active partition, will run the boot loader. This boot loader knows where to find the operating system’s boot files. At this point, the operating system will start up and run. ..
Set Active Partition via Disk Management
Open Computer Management by going to the Control Panel, clicking on System and Maintenance, and then clicking Administrative Tools.
You can also click on Disk Management under Storage to see the following: -The disk space usage of your computer -The disks and partitions on your computer -The disks and partitions in use on your computer
Computer or This PC can be used to manage disks. Right-click on the computer or this PC and choose Manage. You’ll see Disk Management in the left hand menu like shown above. Right-click on the primary partition that you want to mark as active and choose Mark Partition as Active.
Set Active Partition via Command Line
If you marked the wrong partition as active on your computer, you will not be able to boot it. If you cannot mark a partition as active using Windows, you’ll have to use the command line.
If you’re running Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 or 10, depending on your version of Windows, getting to the command line can be a bit tricky. To get to the system repair options for those versions of Windows, read my post on restarting Windows in safe mode. If you’re running Windows 8, read my post on booting to system recovery options. Once there, you have to go to Troubleshoot and then Advanced Options and click on Command Prompt.
In diskpart, type list-modes to see the available modes. To format a drive, type mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sda. In the example below, the user has formatted a drive named “sda” and installed Ubuntu 14.04 on it.
The DiskPart prompt will show you the disk attached to your computer. You can now select the disk you want to work with. My example would select disk 0.
To set the active partition on the disk, type in list partition n and press enter.
To mark a disk or partition as active, just type the word “active” and press Enter. That’s it! Now the partition is set. ..
If you’re using a Windows computer that was built after 2008, you should use DISKPART to manage disk and partitions. DISKPART is the more modern command, and it’s the best way to keep your computer running smoothly. ..
Set Active Partition via MSCONFIG
To set the active partition on a hard drive, you can use MSCONFIG. This tool can be used to set the active partition for both primary and secondary partitions on the same hard drive. Additionally, other partitions on the drive can only have Windows installed in order to make it the active partition.
If you’re not familiar with the MSCONFIG tool, open MSCONFIG and click on the Boot tab. The Boot tab will show you how to enable or disable your computer’s startup items. You can enable or disable your computer’s startup items by clicking on the checkbox next to each item and then clicking on the OK button.
To change the default operating system on your computer, first you’ll see the operating systems listed and the active one will have Current OS. Click on the other operating system and then click on Set as default. ..
There are other ways to set an active partition on a computer, but these are more complicated and not necessary. Even if the built-in system recovery options don’t allow you to get to the command prompt, you can always use a secondary computer to create a bootable USB system recovery drive. If you have any trouble, feel free to post a comment. Enjoy!
