Unfortunately this doesn't work for me. I get the good ol' greyed out problem here.
Brief question because I don't have time to do it now (I'm already late for work!)
If I were to set the partition to primary and reboot (that's the part I don't have time for), would it then allow me to make the partition active once Windows restarted?
Yes, you should be able to mark the partition as Active after you set it to primary. The one thing I am unclear on is whether or not you'll be able to do that to the main boot drive from Windows. Someone who does more of this kind of work than I do should be able to tell you, but all I can say is if it doesn't let you, boot into the recovery console and run the Diskpart commands.
I have now successfully rendered the Win7 partition as primary and the WinXP partition as Inactive. However, it still won't let me set the Win7 partition to Active, and I'm a little wary of rebooting to see if it will allow this as I have a feeling the machine will become unbootable once Windows shuts down.
It's so typical of my machine, of all the computers in the world, to throw up this kind of problem where so many others have managed to perform the exact same operation without flaw.
Doesn't Windows 7 require the 100MB system reserved partition in order to become the System, Active Primary Partition? I don't see it there in the disk management for C drive.
Isn't it that partition called 'System Reserved'?
I also have some astonishing news. After screwing up my boot manager (I became impatient and attempted two steps in one boot), I actually succeeded in rendering Win7 as primary and active, and WinXP as logical and inactive, -all using pwhe-, then used the startup recovery three times technique which repaired the boot files to the Win7 partition. I've now wiped XP (goodbye, old friend...) and am in the midst of merging partitions using pwhe.
Currently sitting twiddling thumbs on my Android tablet waiting for the next thing to go wrong. And oh look, the Google+ app keeps crashing.
Yes it says system reserved and it also says Active, where the actual C drive doesn't say Active and only says Primary Partition. Can you tell if pwhe- added the system reserved partition?
I'm wondering why Windows wouldn't let you do that, hmmm.
As you found out, you can usually fix the boot manager, you can also fix it using the command prompt. bootrec /fixboot and bootrec /fixmbr.
Bootmgr is missing - Fix
Saying goodbye to XP was a welcome sight for me but that was years ago. :)
True enough your actual Win partition should be System Active, as far as I understand it, but I'd cut my losses while I was ahead and just be thankful it's working
I'm genuinely sorry to have gotten rid of XP but I was hanging on to it out of sentimentality . That and because my friend won't make the leap' so when we want to lan it up on Sins of a Solar Empire I had to boot into XP. Well no more!
"Do not mark a partition as active if it doesn't contain the loader for an operating system. Doing so will make your computer unbootable."
How do I know where the boot loader is located at?
Thanks
Hello herbun,
I'm sure there are other ways, but open Disk Management ("diskmgmt.msc" into the start menu), and look for the partition labled "System". That's your target.
BTW - the warning up there is valid in most cases, yet there may be times where it is necessary to mark a non-System partition as Active, namely when you're about to create a new boot loader on another partition. Use with care.
Thanks for your reply. I got a little problem though, there is no partition labeled as "System".
It's in german, however, another german version (win 7 prof) has also a partition called system.
Maybe its the second partition on "Datenträger 0", I can't see whats written there, but it *should* be the same as the status in the table above(as it is on the other german pc), and there I don't find "System" either. See attached image.
Edit:The 7 version I am talking about is home premium btw.
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