Active partition

[Guest]

Hello, I have Windows XP SP2 (all the latest updates etc.), a RAID C drive
(the RAID version spanning two hard disks as one large drive, not the backup
type) and external (removable) hard drives.

I accidently marked one of the external hard drives (which doesn't even have
a Windows system on it) as the "active partition".

The C drive seems to still be marked as a "system partition".

I tried to change it, but the fields for marking active partitions are now
grayed out. I don't want to shut my computer off, because it may try to boot
from the external hard drive (i.e. not boot up).

Thanks in advance for any ideas about how to mark the external hard drive as
a NON-active partition.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hello, I have Windows XP SP2 (all the latest updates etc.), a RAID C drive
(the RAID version spanning two hard disks as one large drive, not the backup
type) and external (removable) hard drives.

I accidently marked one of the external hard drives (which doesn't even have
a Windows system on it) as the "active partition".

The C drive seems to still be marked as a "system partition".

I tried to change it, but the fields for marking active partitions are now
grayed out. I don't want to shut my computer off, because it may try to boot
from the external hard drive (i.e. not boot up).

Thanks in advance for any ideas about how to mark the external hard drive as
a NON-active partition.

Your machine will always boot from the active partition that
is located on the primary master drive. It will not boot from
an external hard drive. And even if the first primary partition
on the primary master drive is not marked "active" for some
reason then it is a trivial matter to make a boot diskette to
reboot the system so that the problem can be fixed. Your
fears are unfounded. However, if you have a habit to play
with partitions then you might want to set up a test machine
so that you can explore this subject in more detail.