System has Two Active partitions on seperate drives-is it a problem?

garria10 · 08 Oct 2011

I've recently installed a new system with the OS on an SSD and data on a Homegroup shared HDD. I've noticed that my shared HDD (S:) has an Active partition as well as the Active partion on my system SSD. I'm concerned that somehow the MBR has got itself installed onto the S: drive rather than the C: drive. (How this can have happened I don't know as the SSD was the only drive attached when I installed Win 7 x64).

How can I tell if the MBR is on the wrong drive and if it is how to fix this? I'm presuming my backup system images (made with Macrium Reflect) will be useless if the image doesn't contain an active MBR?

Thanks

theog · 08 Oct 2011

1) The 60gb SSD should be Disk 0.

2) The 2tb HD Drive should marked inactive.

garria10 · 08 Oct 2011

How do I fix these things?

Corazon · 08 Oct 2011

You can simply rightclick Disk 1 (not the S: partition, but the entire disk itself) and Set as Inactive. That's all.

I don't really see a problem with your C: partition being on disk 3 although it is a bit unusual, but if things are working fine for you, probably best to leave it alone.

To explain a bit more: Each disk has its own MBR (located at the very first sector of the disk), it's not just a matter of the MBR being only on the disk that hosts the bootable system partition. For each disk, the MBR contains that disk's partition layout and the information about which partitions are "active", meaning bootable (if they contain an operating system).

Macrium Reflect does save a copy of the MBR with every backup - at restore time you have the choice of whether to restore the MBR or not. So you're fine. :)

theog · 08 Oct 2011

garria10 said:

How do I fix these things?

1) The 2tb HD Drive should marked inactive.
Partition - Mark as Active

2) Physically disconnect 60gb SSD the HD.
Make the Windows 7 HD, disk0 & first HD boot in BIOS, connect 60gb SSD the HD to the first Sata port on the MOBO.

garria10 · 08 Oct 2011

Thanks for the help. I've now marked the S: drive as inactive (using DISKPART and instructions on another forum) so am happy with that now.
I feel inclined to leave my system disk as disk 3 unless it causes me any concern in future. I am wondering whether it is listed as Disk 3 because my Mobo has 6 SATA 2 ports and 2 SATA 3 ports. The SSD with the OS on it is plugged into the first SATA 3 port with the HDDs plugged into the SATA 2 ports - maybe the Mobo recognises and lists the SATA 2 ports first?
Properties for my SSD (Disk 3)shows it as being in the 0 location etc

System has Two Active partitions on seperate drives-is it a problem?-disk-manager-snip-2.png

BTW right clicking on the S: drive (when it was Active) showed me 'Mark Partition as Inactive' but this was greyed out

whs · 08 Oct 2011

You worry too much. There is no need to change anything. Even an active partition on each drive is nothing to worry about. It probably came about because there was once an OS installed on that drive. As long as the BIOS boot sequence points to the dive from where you want to boot, things are in good order.

gregrocker · 08 Oct 2011

Having Win7 in Disk0 slot and making sure no other partitions are marked Active is mainly a precaution that when Startup Repair is run it will not derail the System boot files to an earlier partition which is marked Active as it can and will do - as will the installer.

Layback Bear · 08 Oct 2011

This might be saying the same thing over but I will say it this way. Having your operating system on disk 0 the only active one allows what ever you are trying to do have no choice but use disk 0. It will not fool with the other drives or partitions unless you instruct it to.