[SOLVED] Partitioning inconsistencies

Hello:

I just discovered that after re-partitioning my hard drive, I have this
(according to Computer Management):

SSD

C - Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)

Internal hard drive (non-SSD))

D - Healthy (Primary Partition)

E - Healthy (Active, Primary Partition)

F - Healthy (Logical Drive)

G - Healthy (Primary Partition)

H - Healthy (Logical Drive)

I - Healthy (Logical Drive)


External hard drive (non-SSD)

L - Healthy (Primary Partition)


I discovered the above when I checked due to that H did not show up in Reg Organizer (a registry app) when I did a disk cleaning.

I really should not have a mix in the internal drive (D-I)
of primary partitions and logical drives, should I? What should I have? And why is E
"active"?

Thanks for your input!

Hans L

The Active partition is the Boot partition on that drive, that is where the OS is.

Apparently you have three Primary Partitions and one Extended Partition on your internal non-SSD. And the extended partition contains 3 Logical partitions.

It used to be that the ordering of the drive letters was based on the order of the primary/1st logical w/in an extended partitions are encountered and then followed by the rest of the logical partitions w/in the extended partition(s) but now you can change this lettering within Disk Management if you are careful.

The easiest way to see a pictorial representation of your disk structure is to go to Start...Search... and type in diskmgmt.msc

That is also where you can change drive letters if desired. Please be aware that links including registry entries will no longer work correctly if they referenced an old drive letter.

Well, not exactly. E is just one partition on the Internal hard drive (non-SSD). The bootable drive is on the SSC (C drive). On the SSD, there is also "System Reserved", which is "Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition)".

Now I see (in Wikipedia): "The total data storage space of a PC hard disk can be divided into at most *four* primary partitions,...". So, I now understand more why my partitions are the way they are, except that I do not understand why E, which is not on the bootable drive (SSD), is "Active".

Regards,

Hans L

With some more research I would edit to read:
The Active partition is the Boot partition on that drive, that is also typically where the OS is.

Did you perhaps start with just that drive and then add & move your OS to SSD later because I believe the boot instructions are still maintained on E:?

When a drive is marked as bootable, the partition that the MBR points to is the Active Partition. Once the MBR give the booting control to the Active Partition, the Boot Manager will point to the appropriate partition that contains the OS of your choice. If the SSD is not flagged with the Active marker then you are not truly booting to the SSD.

When I installed the SSD, I had previously used the second (non-SSD) drive only. So, I disconnected the non-SSD drive (where I had had Win 7 32-bit) and then installed the SSD, and installed Win 7 64-bit on it. After that, I installed the non-SSD drive again and used it only for data. So, I am reasonably sure that I am booting from the SSD (the boot time indicates the same!).

Regards,

Hans L

See my answer to Clifford. I should probably have said already from the beginning that what I did this time was to increase the number of partitions from 4 to 6 on the non-SSD drive. It was only a week or so later that I discovered the mix of primary and logical partitions and worried that I had done something wrong. Now I know that you can only have 4 primary partitions, so when I made 6 partitions, I got 3 primary and 1 extended, the latter being divided into 3 logical partitions. Clear as water in which you have boiled sausages (Swedish expression; believe me, it sounds much better in Swedish :-)

Thank you all for your input and my edification.

Hans L

From what you say, your system is running as it should.

Each drive can have its own active partition. I am however a little confused as to why the SSD does not show to be active. Because without the active marker the MBR doesn't know which partition to send the boot process. Regardless of why the SSD doesn't show the active status, the non-SSD drive is it's own drive and can also have this status for one of it's partitions.

In the USA I think we have a similar phrase "It's clear as mud" and I personally agree that the way Microsoft controls the boot & active partitions is more complicated now and I don't understand it all. But we have another saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" ... I think your system is fine.

If you ever format that active partition then you will likely need to put in the W7 install disk for it to "repair" a new one. Other than that I don't think it matters too much to the user where the active partition is. Here is a bit more from Microsoft about the active partition and "the loader" (since Vista); in XP I've read that there could be only one active partition on the whole computer.

If you feel you have the answer you were seeking, please mark the thread as solved.

Clifford, I think you missed part of my earlier text:

'The bootable drive is on the SSC (C drive). On the SSD, there is also "System Reserved", which is "Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition)".'

Regards,

Hans L