Problem with active partition, Windows 7, Dell Studio XPS 9000

[Al Smith]

I installed a second hard drive, formatted it, but couldn't get it
to show up in Windows Explorer. In Disk Management I tried making
the new hard drive active. No problem doing so. Then I read
on-line that there can only be one active partition, and I paniced
and clicked on my C:\ partition and made it active. I got a
warning message, something like "changing active partition may
make computer unable to boot."

So I continue looking around on-line, and find out that it is only
one active partition per drive that can be active, not one partion
for the whole computer. There was no problem with making my new F
drive active (I didn't know that). BUT ....

I find out that some people on-line are saying that in Dell
computers the OEM partition on the C:\ drive is the active
partition. Who knew? I thought it would be where my Windows
installation is, silly me. But it seems that the active partition
on my boot drive is the OEM partition, not my main "OS (C"
partition.

So I decide to change the active partition back to the OEM
partition, putting it back the way it originally was. BUT ....

There is no menu in Disk Management allowing me to make the OEM
partition active! All the other partitions on the two internal
hard drives can be made active, but the only menu item on the OEM
partition when I right click on it is "help" (pretty ironic, eh?).

Now I'm afraid to turn off my computer, for fear that it won't
boot up again. My "OS (C" partition on the boot drive (Disk 0)
shows "Healthy (Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary
Partition). My unnamed OEM partition on Disk 0 shows "Healthy (OEM
Partition)."

Does anybody know anything about partitions, and active
partitions, and Dell OEM partitions? Is the OEM partition in my
Dell the partition that is supposed to be "active" (as I am afraid
it is), and will it be impossible for me to boot now that I've
made the "OS (C" partition active?

If so ... how do I make the OEM partition active once again?

-Al-

 

[Roland Schweiger]

use the utility

DISKPART.EXE

that comes with Windows7. It ist usually located in the \sources or \boot
directory of the Windows CD or boot media.

This utility allows you to view drives and partitions, and set them active.

To make a partition bootable, you can use the on-board utility

MAKEBOOT.EXE

Always use the /? switch to show help and syntax.

greetings

Roland Schweiger

 

[Seth]

I installed a second hard drive, formatted it, but couldn't get it to show
up in Windows Explorer. In Disk Management I tried making the new hard
drive active. No problem doing so. Then I read on-line that there can only
be one active partition, and I paniced and clicked on my C:\ partition and
made it active. I got a warning message, something like "changing active
partition may make computer unable to boot."

So I continue looking around on-line, and find out that it is only one
active partition per drive that can be active, not one partion for the
whole computer. There was no problem with making my new F drive active (I
didn't know that). BUT ....

I find out that some people on-line are saying that in Dell computers the
OEM partition on the C:\ drive is the active partition. Who knew? I
thought it would be where my Windows installation is, silly me. But it
seems that the active partition on my boot drive is the OEM partition, not
my main "OS (C" partition.

So I decide to change the active partition back to the OEM partition,
putting it back the way it originally was. BUT ....

There is no menu in Disk Management allowing me to make the OEM partition
active! All the other partitions on the two internal hard drives can be
made active, but the only menu item on the OEM partition when I right
click on it is "help" (pretty ironic, eh?).

Now I'm afraid to turn off my computer, for fear that it won't boot up
again. My "OS (C" partition on the boot drive (Disk 0) shows "Healthy
(Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition). My unnamed OEM
partition on Disk 0 shows "Healthy (OEM Partition)."

Does anybody know anything about partitions, and active partitions, and
Dell OEM partitions? Is the OEM partition in my Dell the partition that is
supposed to be "active" (as I am afraid it is), and will it be impossible
for me to boot now that I've made the "OS (C" partition active?

If so ... how do I make the OEM partition active once again?

The OEM Partition is probably not the one you want to be active. DO you (in
disk manager) have an approx 100MB partition directly to the right of the C:
drive partition? Make that one active.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Al.

Seth has the right answer, I think. Here is the much longer explanation for
why...

The terminology here gets awfully confusing. :>( Common words are used to
mean very specific things, but the words continue to be used in their
"generic" senses, too. Words like "boot" and "system" and "drive" - and
others - have several meanings in different contexts. (Of course, that's
true with non-computer words, too, such as "right" and "left".)

We usually say "drive" when we actually mean "volume", which can be either a
"primary partition" or a "logical drive in an extended partition". A "drive
letter" is never assigned to an entire hard disk drive; it is assigned only
to a volume on the HDD. Volumes are created on the HDD by partitioning
software such as Disk Management, which also lets us assign letters. As
you've seen in DM, the physical disks are numbered, as in Disk 0 and Disk 1,
not lettered.

Perhaps the most confusing aspect is the counterintuitive meanings of "boot"
and "system", as in the Boot Volume and System Partition. The definitions -
surprising to a lot of computer users - are here:
Definitions for system volume and boot volume
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/

"Active" also has a special meaning, as you learned: Only one Active
partition per disk, and it doesn't matter unless it is on the HDD currently
designated in the BIOS as the Boot Device. Active partitions on other disks
don't matter - until the BIOS is set to boot from that disk. Any volume -
including a logical drive - can serve as a Boot Volume, but only a primary
partition can be bootable (Active), so the system volume is always a System
Partition.

The Setup.exe in Vista and in Win7 changed the previous order of initially
assigning drive letters. WinXP and prior assigned C: to the System
Partition, but Vista/Win7 assign C: to the Boot Volume. In the typical
system, everything is in a single partition on a single HDD anyhow, so it is
not obvious what is happening. But it becomes very obvious - often
painfully so - in a dual-boot system. After assigning C: to the "drive"
where we tell it to install Win7, which may be the 3rd logical drive on Disk
1, Setup assigns D: to the System Partition, which is still probably the
first partition on Disk 0. The user is happy that C:\Windows is still the
boot folder and probably doesn't realize that every restart still begins on
Drive D:.

To eliminate (?) some of this confusion, Win7 also introduced the
un-lettered System Partition at the beginning of Disk 0. (And an OEM will
probably add its own "recovery partition" ahead of that, as your vendor
apparently did.) So a newbie often doesn't even know the System Partition
is there and thinks that Drive C:, the Boot Volume, handles everything.

My "OS (C" partition on the boot drive (Disk 0) shows "Healthy (Boot,
Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition). My unnamed OEM
partition on Disk 0 shows "Healthy (OEM Partition)."

You didn't say which partition in your system has the "System" label. That
label should be on the small unlettered partition after the OEM partition,
if I understand your computer correctly. THAT is the partition where each
restart begins, then branches to the Boot volume of whichever OS is chosen -
by default or otherwise - from the opening menu. If only a single OS is
installed, that menu never appears, but the boot process still starts in the
System Partition and continues in the Boot Volume, even when both terms
apply to the same partition.

and clicked on my C:\ partition and made it active.

It is entirely possible to make a partition other than the first one on a
disk Active, but rarely what the user intended. In your case, C: was
probably the third partition on Disk 0. But just marking it Active does not
let you boot from it; you would have to create the boot sector and add the
startup files (the file bootmgr and the \Boot folder contents, for Win7).
Otherwise, the BIOS tries to boot from that partition and fails, without
even any instructions to put up an error message.


So, as Seth said, you probably should make that unlettered partition before
C: your Active partition, and be sure your BIOS is set to boot from that
first HDD. On the next boot, the BIOS will point to that first HDD and find
that Active partition, which will once again become the System Partition and
will once again point to Win7 in C:\Windows - where it will find and start
Win7. ;<) Then you can use Disk Management to create and format volumes on
your new HDD and assign them any letters you want - except C:.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[Al Smith]

use the utility

DISKPART.EXE

that comes with Windows7. It ist usually located in the \sources or
\boot directory of the Windows CD or boot media.

This utility allows you to view drives and partitions, and set them active.

To make a partition bootable, you can use the on-board utility

MAKEBOOT.EXE

Always use the /? switch to show help and syntax.

greetings

Roland Schweiger

I was reading up on Makeboot.exe. But now I'm not sure that making
the OEM partition active is the right thing to do -- my main
partition, which is now active, has "boot" in it, which suggests
to me that it is the partition that should be active. I guess I
will just have to reboot the computer to discover if I've screwed
myself or not. I should be able to make it bootable wih the repair
function of my Windows 7 disk, which came with my Dell computer. I
hope. I'm backing up stuff in the event that my present install is
hosed.

-Al-

 

[Al Smith]

The OEM Partition is probably not the one you want to be active. DO you
(in disk manager) have an approx 100MB partition directly to the right
of the C: drive partition? Make that one active.

The only other partition on my C: drive, apart from the OEM
partition and the main partition, is my recovery partition, and I
don't think that was ever active.

I've been reading up, and I can't fine much about the OEM
partition being active, so maybe I made an error in thinking it
ever was. Would I get a message saying (something like) "if you
change the active partition, you may make the drive unbootable" if
I were not actually changing the active partition, but only
reconfirming the active partition -- that is, making it active
twice? I don't know. I think my main partition should be the
active one, and it is the active one right now, and it does have
"boot" in it.

I believe I can use my OEM Windows 7 disk from Dell to fix my boot
record if for some reason I can't boot when I try. I believe my
rescure disk will probably also do this -- but I've never tried
either process.

-Al-

 

[Zaidy036]

Two things:
1) only the boot partition need be active.
2) maybe contact Dell® for guidance concerning their product(s).

The Dell OEM partition is for reinstalling the O/S to the as delivered
configuration of your PC NOT to be used for Booting.

Eric

 

[Al Smith]

You didn't say which partition in your system has the "System" label.
That label should be on the small unlettered partition after the OEM
partition, if I understand your computer correctly. THAT is the
partition where each restart begins, then branches to the Boot volume of
whichever OS is chosen - by default or otherwise - from the opening
menu. If only a single OS is installed, that menu never appears, but the
boot process still starts in the System Partition and continues in the
Boot Volume, even when both terms apply to the same partition.

I have only one OS, Windows 7, and as you say, there is no visible
partition with "System" on it. My booting Disk 0 has three
partitions displayed, the OEM Partition which has no name and is
the first one; the Recovery partition which is the second one; and
the OS (C partition, which is described as the primary
partition, and it now active.

It is entirely possible to make a partition other than the first one on
a disk Active, but rarely what the user intended. In your case, C: was
probably the third partition on Disk 0. But just marking it Active does
not let you boot from it; you would have to create the boot sector and
add the startup files (the file bootmgr and the \Boot folder contents,
for Win7). Otherwise, the BIOS tries to boot from that partition and
fails, without even any instructions to put up an error message.


So, as Seth said, you probably should make that unlettered partition
before C: your Active partition, and be sure your BIOS is set to boot
from that first HDD. On the next boot, the BIOS will point to that first
HDD and find that Active partition, which will once again become the
System Partition and will once again point to Win7 in C:\Windows - where
it will find and start Win7. ;<) Then you can use Disk Management to
create and format volumes on your new HDD and assign them any letters
you want - except C:.

RC

So you're saying I should make the unnamed OEM parition active? It
is the first partition displayed by Computer Management. I can't
do it from the Computer Management function of Windows 7.

If I just reboot, find it doesn't work (as I suspect is won't) and
then boot from my reinstallation Windows 7 DVD disk from Dell,
will it repair my boot record? I'm trying to find the easiest,
most fool-proof way to make sure my computer will boot up
properly, assuming I've screwed it up by changing the active
partition on Disk 0 to "OS (C".

I got the new hard drive working with no problem, by the way. It
was nothing - I just had to assign a drive letter ... but it took
me a while before I realized that.

-Al-

 

[Michael Walraven]

FYI,

DELL laptop studio XPS
Windows 7 Pro 64 bit

I have not done any modifications the the disk structure.
I have three partitions.
Volume Layout Type File System Status Capacity Free Space
% Free Fault Tolerance Overhead
{no name} Simple Basic {blank} Healthy (OEM Partition) 39 MB
39MB % Free 100% No 0%
RECOVERY Simple Basic NTFS Healthy(System, Active, Primary
Partition) 14.65 GB 9.71 GB 66% No 0%
Win7OS(C Simple Basic NTFS Healthy(Boot ,Page File, Crash
Dump, Primary Partition) 451.07 GB, 391.45 GB 87% No 0%

Note that the RECOVERY partition is the Active Partition, and the Win7OS(C
is the Boot partition. Seemed strange to me but I am leaving it that way.

I THINK the OEM partition has BIOS extensions for advanced disk drive tests
for instance.

Michael

 

[Bill Blanton]

I've been reading up, and I can't fine much about the OEM partition
being active, so maybe I made an error in thinking it ever was. Would I
get a message saying (something like) "if you change the active
partition, you may make the drive unbootable" if I were not actually
changing the active partition, but only reconfirming the active
partition -- that is, making it active twice? I don't know.

If it was already active the menu option should have been grayed out.

I think my
main partition should be the active one, and it is the active one right
now, and it does have "boot" in it.

Boot is not necessarily the System partition as RC explained. Are you
sure none say System? It could be the OEM partition had its identifier
changed to keep people from poking around, and is not recognizable to
Windows. It's probably a FAT32 volume. If I had to guess, I say the OEM
partition should be active.

I believe I can use my OEM Windows 7 disk from Dell to fix my boot
record if for some reason I can't boot when I try. I believe my rescure
disk will probably also do this -- but I've never tried either process.

That'll probably work, but you may want to have a backup plan. Get
BootitNG, and make the startup disk. If you have to, boot from that disk
and cancel the install. You'll be able to set any partition active from
there. (under "Partition work" > "View MBR")

 

[Bill Blanton]

On 2/10/2010 12:31, Al Smith wrote:


Boot is not necessarily the System partition as RC explained. Are you
sure none say System? It could be the OEM partition had its identifier
changed to keep people from poking around, and is not recognizable to
Windows. It's probably a FAT32 volume. If I had to guess, I say the OEM
partition should be active.

OTOH, see Michael Walraven's setup that he posted.

 

[Al Smith]

If it was already active the menu option should have been grayed out.



Boot is not necessarily the System partition as RC explained. Are you
sure none say System? It could be the OEM partition had its identifier
changed to keep people from poking around, and is not recognizable to
Windows. It's probably a FAT32 volume. If I had to guess, I say the OEM
partition should be active.

I *think* the OEM partition was the active one before I made the
main partition active. I'm not sure. But now I have no menu item
to make it active again, so I may have to descend into the evil,
black dungeon of DOS or its equivalent in Windows 7.

That'll probably work, but you may want to have a backup plan. Get
BootitNG, and make the startup disk. If you have to, boot from that disk
and cancel the install. You'll be able to set any partition active from
there. (under "Partition work" > "View MBR")

OK, I will look for BootitNG and make the startup disk.

-Al-

 

[Al Smith]

FYI,

DELL laptop studio XPS
Windows 7 Pro 64 bit

I have not done any modifications the the disk structure.
I have three partitions.
Volume Layout Type File System Status Capacity Free Space % Free Fault
Tolerance Overhead
{no name} Simple Basic {blank} Healthy (OEM Partition) 39 MB 39MB % Free
100% No 0%
RECOVERY Simple Basic NTFS Healthy(System, Active, Primary Partition)
14.65 GB 9.71 GB 66% No 0%
Win7OS(C Simple Basic NTFS Healthy(Boot ,Page File, Crash Dump,
Primary Partition) 451.07 GB, 391.45 GB 87% No 0%

Note that the RECOVERY partition is the Active Partition, and the
Win7OS(C is the Boot partition. Seemed strange to me but I am leaving
it that way.

I THINK the OEM partition has BIOS extensions for advanced disk drive
tests for instance.

Michael

Wow. OK, that explains my confusion. I didn't notice that the
Recovery partition was the active partition when I changed active
to the main partition, and that's why there was no provision to
change it to the OEM partition ... it never was the OEM partition
that was active.

I will change active back to the Recovery partition, which I can
do. I think this will put me back where I was. Everything else is
fine -- I got the new drive running with no problems.

You've got the same setup as I do, so if your Dell has the active
partition on the Recovery partition, that's where mine should be.
It seems pretty strange to me, also, but if that's the way
Dell set it up, I don't want to mess with it. I will change it
back to what it was.

Thanks a million. I think this will solve my potential problem.
I'm glad I didn't try booting as I have the thing set up now.

-Al-

 

[Zootal]

I installed a second hard drive, formatted it, but couldn't get it
to show up in Windows Explorer. In Disk Management I tried making
the new hard drive active. No problem doing so. Then I read
on-line that there can only be one active partition, and I paniced
and clicked on my C:\ partition and made it active. I got a
warning message, something like "changing active partition may
make computer unable to boot."

Making a partition active has absolutely nothing to do with it appearing
in windows explorer. After you formatted it in Disk Management, you
probalby needed to assign it a drive letter. Until you do that, it won't
appear in explorer.

Some computer makers, like HP, put two partitions on the drive. A small
recovery partition that is actually the active boot partition, and the
main one that has Windows on it. If you change the active partition, the
computer may very well not boot until you set the recovery partition back
to active.

A friend brought her computer to my house to fix because something went
wrong and Windows would not boot and the recovery partition would not
boot up either. Whipped out my trusty win98 boot floppy, and wtf the
thing has no floppy drive! So I stuck a Linux boot CD in the cd drive
(no, I'm not trying to promote linux, not too much anyhow), and was able
to boot to linux so I could mount and access the partitions on the disk
and save her data, since Winbloze itself was dead in the water. YMMV...

 

[Al Smith]

OTOH, see Michael Walraven's setup that he posted.

I think Michael has solved my problem. It was the Recovery
partition that was originally active, not the OEM partition.
Weird. But making the Recovery partition active should solve my
problem. Michael's partition setup on his Dell laptop is identical
to what mine was before I changed it, I believe, except that my
OEM partition isn't empty.

-Al-

 

[Al Smith]

The Dell OEM partition is for reinstalling the O/S to the as delivered
configuration of your PC NOT to be used for Booting.

Eric

Yeah, I think we've got it now, thanks to Michael's post. It is
the Recovery Partition that has to be active. Weird, or what. What
is Dell smoking?

-Al-

 

[Al Smith]

I think Michael has solved my problem. It was the Recovery partition
that was originally active, not the OEM partition. Weird. But making the
Recovery partition active should solve my problem. Michael's partition
setup on his Dell laptop is identical to what mine was before I changed
it, I believe, except that my OEM partition isn't empty.

-Al-

Correction to the above comment: my OEM partition is also empty,
same as Michael's. I just checked when changing the Recovery
partition back to "active."

-Al-

 

[Al Smith]

Making a partition active has absolutely nothing to do with it appearing
in windows explorer. After you formatted it in Disk Management, you
probalby needed to assign it a drive letter. Until you do that, it won't
appear in explorer.

Some computer makers, like HP, put two partitions on the drive. A small
recovery partition that is actually the active boot partition, and the
main one that has Windows on it. If you change the active partition, the
computer may very well not boot until you set the recovery partition back
to active.

A friend brought her computer to my house to fix because something went
wrong and Windows would not boot and the recovery partition would not
boot up either. Whipped out my trusty win98 boot floppy, and wtf the
thing has no floppy drive! So I stuck a Linux boot CD in the cd drive
(no, I'm not trying to promote linux, not too much anyhow), and was able
to boot to linux so I could mount and access the partitions on the disk
and save her data, since Winbloze itself was dead in the water. YMMV...

That's the situation I envisioned that froze my toes, when I
realized I'd done something wrong by making the main partition on
Disk 0 active. But problem resolved, I think ... it is the
Recovery partition that is supposed to be "active" in these Dells,
and it is easy to use "Disk Management" in Windows 7 to switch the
"active" from the main partition to the Recovery partition. I
dodged a bullet, by not rebooting.

-Al-

 

[Bill Blanton]

Correction to the above comment: my OEM partition is also empty, same as
Michael's. I just checked when changing the Recovery partition back to
"active."

All "active" means is that the MBR code will load and jump into(run) the
boot sector code of that particular volume.

 

[Seth]

The OEM Partition is probably not the one you want to be active. DO you
(in disk manager) have an approx 100MB partition directly to the right of
the C: drive partition? Make that one active.

Oops, got left and right backwards...

The partition to the LEFT of the C: partition is what you want to make
active.