Re: How to mark partition as active
From: Timothy Daniels (TDaniels_at_NoSpamDot.com)
Date: 01/21/05
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Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 13:36:41 -0800
"Sunny" wrote:
>
> I have a test system with NT4, W2K Pro, and XP Pro
> (among other OSes) each installed on separate SCSI
> disks in an external drive enclosure.
>
> I checked, none of them are using scsi(x) in boot.ini -
> matter of fact I don't recall *ever* seeing scsi(x) in a
> boot.ini, however my memories of NT3.51 have faded...
>
>> Notice that there is no connection between "scsi" and the
>> concept of active partitions. Remember that the "active"
>> partition is just the partition that contains a boot sector
>> and the ntldr and boot.ini files. Once ntldr uses boot.ini
>
> I don't have *any* active partitions according to Partition Magic -
> in fact it keeps warning me my system won't boot as a result.
> I assume this means none of my partitions have a boot sector
> either - but my bootable partitions all contain ntldr and a valid
> boot.ini
By using Disk Management in WinXP, I see that the HD that
has one bootable partition is shown with no "(active)" notation,
and right-clicking on it shows the "Mark Partition as Active"
as grayed out. The HD with multiple bootable partitions on it,
though, has one partition marked "(active)". It seems that Disk
Management may look for that flag only if there are multiple
partitions on a HD. IOW, the flag might be there even if utilities
don't report it.
*TimDaniels*
>> to provide the boot menu, the OSes listed in that menu and
>> the one chosen to load may be anywhere on any hard drive.
>> That means that the OS doesn't have to be on the "active"
>> partition of the boot HD, it just has to be where the selected
>> menu entry says it is. IOW, the "active" partition and the
>> partition containing the OS needn't be the same partition.
>> And my educated guess is that all this applies equally and
>> in the same way to both IDE and SCSI hard drives. But
>> in the interest of keeping us all educated, please post your
>> own findings here.
>
> Apparently all this doesn't *quite* apply equally to IDE and SCSI,
> since SCSI doesn't appear to require a boot sector.
>
> Motherboard IDE BIOSes typically don't allow you to specify the
> boot disk, so I suppose they search for a boot sector. SCSI
> controller BIOSes, OTOH, typically *require* you to specify the
> boot disk, so I suppose they simply attempt to boot from the
> specified disk regardless of the presence of a boot sector.
>
> If that's the case, what is required to boot Windows installed on a
> partition *other* than the first partition on a SCSI disk?
>
> Do ntldr and boot.ini have to reside on the first partition, or on the
> boot partition? Or either? And if they reside only on the boot
> partition, does that partition then require a boot sector?
>
> I expect I'll be able to answer those questions - just need to decide
> which of my test system disks is expendable, and make time to
> experiment ;-)
>
> Sunny
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