Partition - Mark as Inactive

How to Mark a Partition as Inactive in Windows 7 and Vista​

   Information

Marking a partition as active on a basic disk means that the computer will use the loader (an operating system tool) on that partition to start the operating system. Marking a partition as active if it doesn't contain the loader for an operating system may cause your computer to become unbootable.

This tutorial will show you how to mark a partition as inactive in Windows 7 and Vista in case you marked it as active by mistake.

   Tip

If you mark the wrong active partition as inactive by mistake and can no longer boot from it, then you can do a startup repair to fix it.

EXAMPLE: Partition Marked as Active and Inactive
NOTE: This is an example of my D: data partition shown as active by mistake in Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc). I used the steps in this tutorial to mark it as inactive since my System Reserved partition is my true active partition instead.






Here's How:
1. Open a elevated command prompt, or a command prompt at boot.

2. In the command prompt, type diskpart and press Enter. (see screenshot below step 6)

3. In the command prompt, type list volume and press Enter. (see screenshot below step 6)
NOTE: Make note of the volume number or letter that you wanted to mark as inactive. At boot, the drive letters may not be the same as they are in Windows.

4. In the command prompt, type select volume # or select volume letter and press Enter. (see screenshot below step 6)
NOTE: You would substitute # for the volume number listed, or letter for the volume/partition letter. For example, I want to mark my D: partition as inactive, so I would type either select volume 2 or select volume D and press Enter.

5. In the command prompt, type inactive and press Enter. (see screenshot below step 6)

6. In the command prompt, type exit and press Enter. (see screenshot below)

7. Close the elevated command prompt in Windows, or restart the computer if at boot.

That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Mark a Partition as Active in Windows 7
• How to Delete a Partition or Volume in Windows 7
• How to Extend a Partition or Volume in Windows 7
• How to Create a New Partition or Volume in Windows 7
• How to Shrink a Partition or Volume in Windows 7
• How to Run a Startup Repair in Windows 7
• Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times to Repair Boot Issues
• Bootmgr is missing - Fix

 

[theog]

Nice one, Shawn.

 

[StalkeR]

Excellent tutorial Brink !

 

[Brink]

Thank you guys.

 

[Lopy]

I can't seem to figure this out like you guys.

I'm trying to mark O as inactive. This is my removable usb hard drive.

 

[Brink]

Hello Lopy, and welcome to Seven Forums.

See if using the command below at step 4 may work instead.

select volume 7

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Lopy]

Thanks.
This is the result I get. It doesnt seem to work

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 E DVD-ROM 0 B No Media
Volume 1 C HP NTFS Partition 583 GB Healthy System
Volume 2 D FACTORY_IMA NTFS Partition 13 GB Healthy
Volume 3 G Removable 0 B No Media
Volume 4 H Removable 0 B No Media
Volume 5 I Removable 0 B No Media
Volume 6 J Removable 0 B No Media
Volume 7 O FAT32 Partition 466 GB Healthy

DISKPART> select volume 7

Volume 7 is the selected volume.

DISKPART> inactive

There is no partition selected.
Please select a partition and try again.

DISKPART>

 

[Brink]

Could you post back with a screenshot of your Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) showing all of your HDDs' full layout?

Do you have anything on the HDD that you need to keep? If so, do you have space on another HDD to move it to temporarily?

 

[Lopy]

Yes, I can back it up to my main hdd.

 

[Brink]

Ok, good.

After backing up the contents of O, you could run the clean (not "clean all") command on the O drive to wipe it out and leave the HDD as "unallocated space". Afterwards, you can just format it again without it being "active", and copy the data back to it.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52129-disk-clean-clean-all-diskpart-command.html

 

[Lopy]

Thanks.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome.

 

[Britton]

Awesome

Thank you Brink for yet another helpful tutorial. Though my other internal drives were marked as active it never caused any boot problems. This was another one of those irritating issues in windows for me. Within 2 minutes I had marked the 3 other drives as inactive thanks to your guide. Never would have figured that out with out it.

I learned something new today! How do you remember all this shit!?

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Britton. Glad it could help.

 

[BobFairmead]

Thanks, and additional.

I was just going to add my thanks for a clear and well-illustrated and explained tut, but I'll pick your brains further, if I may.
I'm here because Create System Image includes my D: drive which contains XP - I dual boot, and it will not be unchecked. Is this process in any way destructive? Can I execute this procedure to exclude D: temporarily, and after Creating the Image, restore its status to Active using Mark as Active without any damage to the boot information - MBR whatever?

Thanks again.

PS. I posted a link to this tut on another forum for someone who was "at my wit's end" over this. That's OK isn't it?

 

[Brink]

Hello Bob,

A system image will include all of your system drives by default, and cannot be unchecked as you discovered. That's perfectly fine and what you would want since that is what you would at least want to be included in the image anyways.

If your D: drive is marked as a "system" drive, then it wouldn't matter if it was "active" or not, it would still be included in the image.

Sure, it's perfectly fine and welcomed to link our tutorials anywhere you like. I created them so that they may help folks no matter where.

 

[BobFairmead]

Hi Brink, and thanks for your reply. Obviously I did some research about this drives-included-in-the-Image-list thing, and I was given to believe that the key to inclusion was the term "Active". I checked this - Computer/(right click)/Manage/Storage/Disk Management, and, indeed, both my C: and D: drives bear that term in their listing therein. No others do, and no others are included in the "Create System Image" list, so that seems to fit. Curiously, my C: drive does not contain the term, "System", while my D: drive does. My D: (XP) drive is not the important drive, and I truly do not want to Image it. I'm bothered only about having to reinstall Windows 7, and, all over again, the gigabytes of Updates that would subsequently follow - without a 2nd Service Pack, that is. I know that I will follow your tutorial sooner or later, regardless - I'm a fiddler, believing, "If it aint broke, mess about with it anyway."; I won't be able to ignore it now that I've read it.
I used the term "destructive" in the computer sense, meaning that the procedure rewrites or deletes or otherwise changes more than the contents of the single location that indicates "Active" or not active.
I'll let you know what happens.
Cheers.

 

[Brink]

Go ahead and post a screenshot of Disk Management showing the layout of your drives to see what we may be able to do.

 

[BobFairmead]

Hidy. It only bloody worked :shock:! After marking D: as Inactive it cleared the foul and wicked fixed tick in Create System Image. Good call. (Yes, I could've just disconnected the drive inside the case, and reconnected after doing the Image, but this is way more fun, ...and I thank you - sung to the tune of I thank you, Sam & Dave, decades ago. Youtube it.)
Just out of curiosity, I'm going to reboot without resetting the D: drive back to Active, and see what happens when I choose XP at startup - can't help it, I'm a fiddler. Later, though, got some fairly urgent stuff to do over the next coupla days. But I'll let you know.
Off Topic. Was thinking recently about the best innovations in computers in general. For me that's USB - just four cable connections and hot switchable, no more having to shutdown, connect, restart, and, with 7, one never seems to need a driver CD. Using the Command Prompt here reminded me that one of the best Windows innovations is the scrollable DOS window. Beats only having F1 to display the previous command - character by character.
No smiley of a happy bunny, sadly. But that's me now.
Took screenshots, but Insert Image wants a URL. There is no Browse (local disk) . Nturrh. Don't do cloud, cepn fer email.

 

[Brink]

I'm happy to hear that all is well so far Bob.