None system drive marked as active

[magicant]

I was looking around in disk management and I noticed one of my data drives is marked as active (the option to mark as active is greyed out). The only other drive like this is the hidden partition on my system drive.

I don't believe I ever accidentally marked this as active, and on my other computer no other drives are active.

I read that if you mark another drive as active your system may not boot. I obviously have had no problems so I'm wondering if I should worry about this.

I found online how to make a drive inactive using disk part but when I try I get this message:
The INACTIVE command can only be used on fixed MBR disk

I tried choosing the actual partition of the drive and trying again but I get the same message. I also tried making the drive offline and trying to make it inactive, but still no luck.

Anyone have this issue, know a way to make this inactive, or feel it is not an issue?

Thanks.

[FONT=&quot]System specs:

--OS: - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit) SP1 with latest updates.
--Monitor: - Dell UltraSharp U3011 30-inch Widescreen
--Case: - COOLER MASTER HAF X RC-942-KKN1 ATX Full Tower
--Motherboard: MSI Big Bang-XPower LGA 1366 Intel X58 with latest Bios v1.7
--CPU: - Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.33GHz
--CPU Cooler: - CoolIT Systems VAN-R120 Vantage A.L.C. Liquid Coole
--Power Supply: - CORSAIR Professional Series AX1200 1200W
--Sound Card: - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty
--Video Card: - EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti SC+
--Memory: - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 24GB (6 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM
--Memory Cooler: - G.SKILL FTB-3500C5-D Fans
--1st Hard Drive: - SAMSUNG 850 PRO 256GB SSD
--2nd Hard Drive - SAMSUNG 850 PRO 256GB SSD
--3rd Hard Drive: - Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1000DHTZ
--4th Hard Drive: -Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache
--1st Optical Drive: - LG WH10LS30K 10X Blu-ray Burner
--2nd Optical Drive: - LG WH10LS30K 10X Blu-ray Burner
--Keyboard/Mouse: - Logitech MX 5500 Revolution Bluetooth Cordless Desktop
--Card Reader: Nippon Labs Delux 3.5" Internal Card Reader/Writer
--Speakers: - Altec Lansing ADA995 5.1 surround speakers[/FONT]

 

[Ranger4]

Can you supply a screen shot of Disc Management, usually found in Computer Management. Please include all the info from that Window. We need this so we can see what is what with your disc arrangements.

Below is how to do a Screen Shot.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html?ltr=S

 

[Layback Bear]

This tutorial by Golden may also be helpful.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html

 

[AddRAM]

You should be able to mark it inactive with Partition Wizard.

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

It`s nothing to worry about, but your PC should only have 1 Active Partition, unless of course you are doing a Dual boot and have unplugged all other drives when installing windows to each drive.

 

[magicant]

I realized title should be NON system drive, not none.

I'll post a screenshot of disk management tonight.

I only have one OS installed, and when I installed it I only had my main hard drive connected. I didn't connect the other drives until after windows was completely installed and updated. So not sure why this drive is marked active, or if it has been that way from the beginning.

I'll take a look at that partition program to see if that works, since disk management is not letting me do it.

Thanks

 

[whs]

This is only a problem if that drive is high in the boot sequence (higher than the real boot drive). I would recommend though to mark it as inactive to avoid any confusion.

 

[DavidE]

You should post the Disk Management screen print BEFORE making any changes.
If you make a change and things don't work right, no-one here will know for sure what you had before the change(s), without that screen print.

 

[magicant]

Attached is a screenshot of disk management. You can see I right clicked on the I drive and the option to make it active is greyed out. I have not made any changes yet. I will look into that disk partition program later.

Thanks.

 

[whs]

Maybe it is my old eyes, but I really don't see where the problem is. And why would you want to make the I-drive active.

 

[AddRAM]

I only see 1 partition marked Active, which is how it should be.

Why is your page file on Disk 2 ?

Did you do that on purpose ?

And why is your System Reserved partition lettered ?

It should not have a letter.

 

[magicant]

I don't want to make the I drive active, I want to make it inactive. Since the option to make it active is greyed out, I assume it is already active, which it shouldn't be. The only other partition that is active is the 100mb windows partition on my C drive.

On my other computer, that is the only active drive, so I am not sure why I is also active.

I gave the 100mb partition a drive letter. When I installed windows on my other computer years ago, I couldn't make any changes to msconfig (setting safe boot, etc). and I read somewhere that giving that partition a drive letter would solve the problem, so I did. I did it on this computer too, to be consistent. I have not had any problems in years by doing this so I don't think that is the problem. And like I said, my other computer only has that partition active.

So my concern is why my I drive is active.

And yes, I moved the paging file to a 10,000 rpm mechanical disk cause I had read it was better to keep it off an SSD. I did it on my other computer for that reason, and to save space as that SSD was much smaller. So I figured I would do it on this computer as well. And again, this has not cause any noticeable problems to me.

So the real question is why is I active and why can't I make it inactive with disk part.

Thank you.

 

[magicant]

Forgive me if i sounded rude in my response. I just reread it and it sounds that way. That was not my intention. It doesn't seem like i have to worry about this but I'm just wondering why the option to make the I drive is greyed put but it is not for any other drive (except the 100mb partition)

Thanks

 

[Ranger4]

Forgive me if i sounded rude in my response. I just reread it and it sounds that way. That was not my intention. It doesn't seem like i have to worry about this but I'm just wondering why the option to make the I drive is greyed put but it is not for any other drive (except the 100mb partition)

Thanks

The reason that your I drive Active is greyed out is because there should only be one active partition in the system, which in your case is the main Operating System drive & that is correct.

You could move the Page File back to the SSD which would make the system faster. I only have an SSD in my computer & the page file is therefore on the SSD. You can also reduce the size of the Page File when using an SSD.

I see you have 24GB of RAM installed so your page file could be up to 30+GB. Unless you are doing very heavy video editing or similar you could probably run with a very small or no page file at all.

 

[magicant]

But why if I right click on my H drive is there an option to make it active? It is only greyed out on the I drive which I don't understand.

I haven't noticed any slow down with the page file being on the 10,000 rpm drive, but I guess I would have to move it to the SSD to see if I notice a difference. And I do some video editing so I definitely want a page file.

Thanks.

 

[Ranger4]

The reason the H drive has the Active option is probably because the Page File is there & it is considered as part of the main OS. Normally the page file would be on the same partition as the OS as it really is part of it.

However don't make your H drive active as this could cause problems with booting the system.

 

[magicant]

ah ok. And so the I drive is greyed out because C is already active. So I is not actually active I guess?
Then I should just leave things the way they are.

The thing is on my other computer, all other drives (even the one with the page file) have the option to click make active. That is why I'm confused that it is different on this computer.

But I guess everything is working so I will leave it.

 

[whs]

I would not worry about the page file. With that kind of RAM it will probably never be used. I would give it 1GB and put it any place.

 

[magicant]

I've always read it should be at leaat the size of your ram. I think i have it set that way (i have to check) It has been like this for 5 years and i haven't had any problems.

 

[whs]

The reason they recommend it to be the size of your RAM is so that a memory dump could be recorded and would fit. That is the only drawback if you make it smaller - you lose that capability. But maintaining the RAM size makes only sense when you know how to deal with a memory dump.

 

[magicant]

Although this has strayed from my original issue (which I believe the answer is don't worry about the fact that the I drive is possibly set to active), since I have not noticed any problems with my computer for 5 years (including doing video editing), is there any reason I should set my page file to smaller than my amount of ram, and/or move it to my SSD drive?

Thank you.