Inactive partition & Disk Manager

[Guest]

My new system has a 250 GB SATA drive that has been formatted and loaded with
WIN XP Pro SP2. I've tried to create 2 new partititon with Partition Magic 8
and after reading through this group, I tried Disk Management within XP.
Partition Magic told me there was no active partition on my new Drive C:
before it applied the changes I wanted. I chose not to make the changes until
I understood the issue better.

When I look at Drive C: in Disk Management, it shows up as "healty (system)"
as compared to my secondary drive (from my old system) which already has 3
partitions and in which the first partition is labeled "healty (active)".
Many replies in here have said to right click on the partition and then click
on making the partition active. I can't do that. "Make the partition active"
is grayed out on my drop down window.

How can I fix this? And once fixed, can I use Disk Manager to resize
Partition C: and add 2 logocal partitions to the primary drive?

 

[Lil' Dave]

My new system has a 250 GB SATA drive that has been formatted and loaded
with
WIN XP Pro SP2. I've tried to create 2 new partititon with Partition Magic
8

On what/which hard drive? You already formatted the entire 250GB SATA hard
drive.

and after reading through this group, I tried Disk Management within XP.

On what/which hard drive? What were the results?

Partition Magic told me there was no active partition on my new Drive C:

Guess that kinda means it may not interpreting something correctly for you.
Namely, the partition you're talking about and what its referring to may be
2 different things.

before it applied the changes I wanted. I chose not to make the changes
until
I understood the issue better.

When I look at Drive C: in Disk Management, it shows up as "healty
(system)"

Yep, so?

as compared to my secondary drive (from my old system) which already has 3
partitions and in which the first partition is labeled "healty (active)".

You don't KNOW the C: partition is active?

Many replies in here have said to right click on the partition and then
click
on making the partition active. I can't do that. "Make the partition
active"

For what?

is grayed out on my drop down window.

How can I fix this? And once fixed, can I use Disk Manager to resize

It ain't broke.

Partition C: and add 2 logocal partitions to the primary drive?

You said you already formatted the entire 250GB SATA. That means the entire
hard drive is partitioned. Where you getting the unused space for logical
partitions?
Dave

 

[Guest]

I also tried to set partition ACTIVE with Partition Magic and that option in
PM8 is also grayed out....

HELP !!!!!

 

[Bill Blanton]

If the system boots, then the correct partition is "active". The active partition is the
partition that the initial boot loader loads, and where you should find ntldr, ntdetect.com
and boot.ini. That's all it means. It has no bearing on whether or not a partition is
visible. Reassigning the active partition can render the machine
non-bootable.

 

[Guest]

On what/which hard drive? You already formatted the entire 250GB SATA hard
drive.

It is Drive C, the 250 GB SATA drive.

On what/which hard drive? What were the results?

Again, on Drive C:, the SATA drive. The same as with PM8, it doesn't say
that Drive C:\: is active, just "system".

Guess that kinda means it may not interpreting something correctly for you.
Namely, the partition you're talking about and what its referring to may be
2 different things.


Yep, so?

Drive 2 (D,E,F) shows up as logical drive D being "active".

You don't KNOW the C: partition is active?

Both PM8 and Disk Management are saying it not active.

For what?


It ain't broke.

PM8 seems to think it is. Why else would it warn me about making new
partitions on a drive that doesn't have an active partition?

You said you already formatted the entire 250GB SATA. That means the entire
hard drive is partitioned. Where you getting the unused space for logical
partitions?

That's why I asked about resizing using Disk Management. It won't even let
me do that..

 

[Guest]

I missed one of your prior comments....

On what/which hard drive? You already formatted the entire 250GB SATA hard
drive.


On what/which hard drive? What were the results?


Guess that kinda means it may not interpreting something correctly for you.
Namely, the partition you're talking about and what its referring to may be
2 different things.

Are you thinking that even though I've selected Drive C: it is saying some
other disk does not have an active partition? I only have one other HDD and
it shows it's first partition as "active".

 

[Anna]

I also tried to set partition ACTIVE with Partition Magic and that option
in
PM8 is also grayed out....

HELP !!!!!

Fred:
I suppose the simplest thing to do at this point would be to make a fresh
install of the XP OS and just create the two, three or whatever partitions
you want. But I suppose that's not practical for you because you've already
installed all your programs & user-created data on the drive and don't want
to reinstall all of those. Is that right?

Setting aside this "partition management" problem you're experiencing, your
SATA HDD boots without incident and functions properly in all respects.
That's right, isn't it? Your *only* problem or issue at this point is simply
to create a multi-partitioned HDD, right?

Assuming your answers to the above is "yes", there should be no problem
using PM8 to create the partitions you want. Why you're experiencing that
problem is impossible (at least for me) to tell. All I can suggest is what
I've indicated above re making a fresh install of the OS or in lieu of that,
ensure as best you can that you're properly using PM.
Anna

 

[Guest]

Thanks to all for the help..

Bottom line was that I had my old HD installed as the second hard drive and
it was causing problems with the system re: "who's on first!" kind of thing.,
As soon as I disconnected the old drive I was able to properly partition the
new hard drive and then when I reinstalled the old drive, everything was OK..

Life is good (at least for a while !!)