▷ Mark partition as active or inactive 【best methods】

In this article we are going to see how to mark partition as active and what is this for. In addition, we will also see how to revert the changes, and mark a partition as inactive. The priority of the devices at startup, the configuration of active partitions on our computer, is a topic not too well known for normal or inexperienced users. So today we will try to explain this procedure and shed light on how it works.

Index of contents

What is an active partition

An active partition consists of a boot partition on the computer. It will contain the boot files of the operating system that is installed on the hard drive. At this point, we must make two distinctions, since in systems after Windows 7 the change structure then we have to:

The active partition by default on our computer if we have a system prior to Windows 7 will be the one with Windows installed, whose letter will always be " C. " If we have Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10, the active partition will not be the drive "C:", since the MBR in this case is located in a new partition called "Reserved" and whose size is 400 MB.

When we start a computer, the first thing that starts is the BIOS, which checks all our devices for any error that does not allow them to boot, or for changes made since the last shutdown. Next, it looks for the active partition so that it is in charge of performing the startup operations of the operating system inside it.

When the system starts up, it makes an image of the installed drive or drives to mount and assign a letter to each one of the found partitions, the primary partitions will go first, then the logical partitions will go and finally the removable storage drives.

For example, if we have more than one operating system installed on our computer on different hard drives, which is what we would be interested in modifying the active partition, we can modify it, thus altering the boot priority of a specific operating system. This way if we have two Windows, the one with the active partition will start first. In the case of a grub, it will create a menu with these partitions and prepare the computer for us to choose which operating system to start.

Mark partition as Active with Disk Manager

The first way we have to mark a partition as active is through the hard disk manager graphical interface tool. This is installed in Windows natively from the first versions with a graphical interface.

To access it, we will only have to press the key combination " Windows + X ", or right-click on the start menu. The effect will be the appearance of another menu with a gray background in which we must locate the option " Disk Management ".

Now we will see a list of mounted volumes in the upper area and the list of hard drives with their partitions represented in the lower area, this is where we will have to work.

The first thing we will have to do is locate where our installed system or operating systems are. In our case we have two hard drives, and in each one an installed operating system. The active partition will be the one that says "Reserved for the system", it will be in charge of booting the Windows system that has been installed last.

We want to have the possibility to start both systems. Well, to choose the one of another hard disk with another installed operating system, we will only have to right click on it, and choose “ Mark partition as active ”, since it was not previously marked as such.

At this moment, we will be shown a warning that, if the partition that we want to choose as active does not have an operating system, the hard disk will not boot. In our case, it does have another system, so we continue.

We must bear in mind that we will not be able to mark these partitions as active:

Those without an operating system installed Portable storage drives Dynamic hard drives

From now on, the other operating system will be ready to be used at startup, but be careful because this has not ended here.

Add another Windows to startup

We already have the active partition so that our team finds out that there is an operating system, now what we will have to do is add that system to the boot menu. In this way, when we start our equipment, a menu will appear where we can choose the system we want.

In this case we must use CMD or PowerShell with Administrator permissions, so we are going to open any of them, for example, PowerShell. Press " Windows + X " and choose the option " Windows PowerShell (Administrator) ".

The only thing we will have to write is:

bcdboot

In our case it will be in the letter D: \ then it would be:

bcdboot D: \ Windows

And it would be, now a new Windows has been added at startup, if we restart we will see how the menu appears with these two systems.

This only applies to Windows. If we have a different system like Mac or Linux we would have to use a Grub.

Mark partition as active using Diskpart

This option is considered more important than the other, since it is done through the command line and we will have the possibility of using it from a Windows installation DVD in case our active partition does not work and we need to change it for another.

We are going to use CMD to work with Diskpart, so we will open our start menu and write "CMD". Now we must choose the option of " Run as administrator ", since the permissions of this user will be necessary to perform actions.

Now we will have to place a series of commands in the terminal. After each of them we must press Enter to execute them, so let's begin.

diskpart

Command to start the program. The Promt will change to its name.

list disk

It will serve to identify the disk where our operating system will be installed, and, consequently, it will have the partition that we want to place as active inside. We must identify each disk by its storage space.

We must memorize the disk number that interests us, which is in the first column.

select disk

We select the disk with which we want to work.

Now we are going to list your partitions to identify the one we want to make active.

list partition

We select the one that interests us.

select partition

Now we can place it as active with the following command:

activate

The process is super simple, with the only complication of selecting the partition we want well.

After this procedure, we would also have to do the process of adding the menu to Windows startup.

Mark partition as inactive

Just as we have previously chosen a partition as active, we can also do exactly the same to configure it as inactive. Let's take advantage of being inside Diskpart to mark a partition as inactive.

The only thing we would have to write in this case, after doing the same procedure to select the corresponding partition, is write:

inactive

Next, we should mark as active the partition that we want, there must always be some as active, otherwise the computer will not start any operating system.

Do the procedure from a Windows 10 installation DVD or USB

This Diskpart procedure is useful if we have an installation DVD and we want to solve errors made, such as having deactivated all partitions or leaving one that does not start up as active.

Of course, before we will have to know how to create a bootable USB with Windows if we do not have it and we must also be able to start said USB when starting our computer.

At this point, we will have booted our USB and the first window for the installation of the system will appear. In it we will have to choose the option " Repair equipment ".