External drive - should it be set Active?

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

Do not set the drive as active. Not necessary or recommended. You can not
boot Windows XP from an external drive anyway. You "may" be able to install
and boot Win98 from the drive, but I wouldn't even bet on that. (-:

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from: George Ankner
"If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!"

"M.Siler" <email address not provided> wrote in message
news h$fvikkFHA.2180@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>I have a new External Firewire drive. It has been formated NTFS. In the
>Disk Managment should it be set Active? I've read that the boot partition
>must be set Active but this isn't a boot partition.
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

I'm not admitting to setting it active ;-) but if some how it was set
active how to unset it... or deactivate it?

"Richard Urban [MVP]" <richardurbanREMOVETHIS@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news pohaokkFHA.576@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> Do not set the drive as active. Not necessary or recommended. You can not
> boot Windows XP from an external drive anyway. You "may" be able to
> install and boot Win98 from the drive, but I wouldn't even bet on that.
> (-:
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Richard Urban
> Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
>
> Quote from: George Ankner
> "If you knew as much as you thought you know,
> You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!"
>
> "M.Siler" <email address not provided> wrote in message
> news h$fvikkFHA.2180@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>>I have a new External Firewire drive. It has been formated NTFS. In the
>>Disk Managment should it be set Active? I've read that the boot partition
>>must be set Active but this isn't a boot partition.
>>
>
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

"M.Siler" <email address not provided> wrote...
> I'm not admitting to setting it active ;-) but if some how it was set
> active how to unset it... or deactivate it?

Several years ago I installed a new HD in an NT4 machine, and kept the old HD
with the old "Active" partition. Not only did I have problems trying to get the
new HD recognized at all, but I then had a host of problems until I did reset
the old HD.

Bottom line is that I had to backup the data and repartition and reformat the
old HD...

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Unplug it?

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 22:30:36 -0400, "M.Siler" <email address not
provided> wrote:

>I'm not admitting to setting it active ;-) but if some how it was set
>active how to unset it... or deactivate it?
>
>"Richard Urban [MVP]" <richardurbanREMOVETHIS@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news pohaokkFHA.576@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
>> Do not set the drive as active. Not necessary or recommended. You can not
>> boot Windows XP from an external drive anyway. You "may" be able to
>> install and boot Win98 from the drive, but I wouldn't even bet on that.
>> (-:
>>
>> --
>> Regards,
>>
>> Richard Urban
>> Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
>>
>> Quote from: George Ankner
>> "If you knew as much as you thought you know,
>> You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!"
>>
>> "M.Siler" <email address not provided> wrote in message
>> news h$fvikkFHA.2180@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>>>I have a new External Firewire drive. It has been formated NTFS. In the
>>>Disk Managment should it be set Active? I've read that the boot partition
>>>must be set Active but this isn't a boot partition.
>>>
>>
>>
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

So once a drive is marked active, that's that unless you want to repartition
and reformat it?

"John R Weiss" <jrweiss98155(at)@[NOSPAM].comcast(dot).net> wrote in message
news:%23H9VOTlkFHA.2156@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
> "M.Siler" <email address not provided> wrote...
>> I'm not admitting to setting it active ;-) but if some how it was set
>> active how to unset it... or deactivate it?
>
> Several years ago I installed a new HD in an NT4 machine, and kept the old
> HD with the old "Active" partition. Not only did I have problems trying
> to get the new HD recognized at all, but I then had a host of problems
> until I did reset the old HD.
>
> Bottom line is that I had to backup the data and repartition and reformat
> the old HD...
>
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

Only way I know is to use the "switch active partitions" to a temporary
partition and then delete it method.

M.Siler wrote:

> So once a drive is marked active, that's that unless you want to repartition
> and reformat it?
>
> "John R Weiss" <jrweiss98155(at)@[NOSPAM].comcast(dot).net> wrote in message
> news:%23H9VOTlkFHA.2156@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
>
>>"M.Siler" <email address not provided> wrote...
>>
>>>I'm not admitting to setting it active ;-) but if some how it was set
>>>active how to unset it... or deactivate it?
>>
>>Several years ago I installed a new HD in an NT4 machine, and kept the old
>>HD with the old "Active" partition. Not only did I have problems trying
>>to get the new HD recognized at all, but I then had a host of problems
>>until I did reset the old HD.
>>
>>Bottom line is that I had to backup the data and repartition and reformat
>>the old HD...
>>
>>
>
>
>