Problem with active partition, Windows 7, Dell Studio XPS 9000

[Zootal]

That's the situation I envisioned that froze my toes, when I
realized I'd done something wrong by making the main partition on
Disk 0 active. But problem resolved, I think ... it is the
Recovery partition that is supposed to be "active" in these Dells,
and it is easy to use "Disk Management" in Windows 7 to switch the
"active" from the main partition to the Recovery partition. I
dodged a bullet, by not rebooting.

-Al-

Yeah - if you had rebooted, you would have been dead in the water .
Unless you know how to boot floppy/usb/cd and fix it, you remain dead in
the water until you figure it out or find someone that can fix it.

Dell and HP and probalby others set the recovery partition to boot so
that if Windows goes by by, you boot to the recovery partition and
reinstall Windows. The recovery partition is (in a perfect world) always
bootable. In the case of the computer I was working on, they hard drive
had developed multiple bad spots (because they dropped the computer on
the floor DOH!) and it was just dead in the water. I ended up pulling the
drive out and sticking it in a working windows box and cloning what I
could recover from it to a replacement drive. Fortunately, the damage was
minimal (just enough to keep windows from booting) and I got it going
again. Hope you don't have to go through that, it's a PITA.

 

[Al Smith]

Yeah - if you had rebooted, you would have been dead in the water .
Unless you know how to boot floppy/usb/cd and fix it, you remain dead in
the water until you figure it out or find someone that can fix it.

Dell and HP and probalby others set the recovery partition to boot so
that if Windows goes by by, you boot to the recovery partition and
reinstall Windows. The recovery partition is (in a perfect world) always
bootable. In the case of the computer I was working on, they hard drive
had developed multiple bad spots (because they dropped the computer on
the floor DOH!) and it was just dead in the water. I ended up pulling the
drive out and sticking it in a working windows box and cloning what I
could recover from it to a replacement drive. Fortunately, the damage was
minimal (just enough to keep windows from booting) and I got it going
again. Hope you don't have to go through that, it's a PITA.

Me, too. I have played with Partition Magic in past versions of
Windows, but it's been a few years since I had to mess with
partitions, and I'd forgotten most of what I'd learned. What you
said about the reason why the recovery partition is active makes
sense to me ... I was thinking the same thing a while ago.

-Al-

 

[Al Smith]

All "active" means is that the MBR code will load and jump into(run) the
boot sector code of that particular volume.

Got that now, thanks.

-Al-

 

[Al Smith]

Oops, got left and right backwards...

The partition to the LEFT of the C: partition is what you want to make
active.

It's done. Now I reboot, after I send this post, and see what
happens.

-Al-

-Al-

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Al.

There's WAY too much static in this thread! :>( (And, yes, I've
contributed my share.)

And way too much emphasis on the "active" partition. Since you have two
HDDs in your computer now, you can have two partitions marked Active - one
on each physical disk.

Active means something to the BIOS, but it doesn't mean anything to Windows,
really. All it means to the BIOS is that the partition MIGHT be used to
boot the computer - but it can't actually BE used to boot unless it contains
a boot sector and the startup files: bootmgr (a filename with no extension)
and the BCD (Boot Configuration Data), which is contained in the folder
named \Boot. The BCD consists of about 6 files and 26 folders, mostly
language folders. These are all Hidden and System files and folders, of
course, so you'll have to deal with those Attributes to see them. But if
they are not on the Active partition, then that is NOT the SYSTEM Partition
and can't be used to boot Win7.

The boot sector is the first physical sector of a bootable physical
partition. It is not a file; it is not a part of NTFS or any other file
system, so it can't be seen by Windows Explorer or most programs. But it
must be the first sector of the System Partition, because it tells the BIOS
what kind of file system to expect on that partition and whether to look for
MSDOS.SYS (for Win9x or earlier) or NTLDR (for Win2K/XP/NT) or bootmgr (for
Vista/Win7) to start the process of "the system pulling itself up by its own
bootstraps" to "boot" the computer. For Win7, BIOS reads the boot sector,
which tells it to find bootmgr in the Root of the System Partition. At this
early stage in the boot process, the computer doesn't yet know about
partitions and folders, so the critical files MUST be in the ROOT of that
Active partition on the HDD designated in the BIOS as the current Boot
Device.

I have only one OS, Windows 7, and as you say, there is no visible
partition with "System" on it.

Have you looked at the partition on Disk 1, your new HDD? Win7 is not
prejudiced; it is perfectly happy to have the System Partition on any HDD in
your computer. If Disk 1 was designated as the Boot Device in the BIOS at
the time you ran Setup, then Setup would have created the necessary boot
sector and files on the Active partition on THAT HDD, making it the System
Partition. Files in that partition would still point back to the Win7
installation's Boot Folder C:\Windows on the first HDD, and the computer
would happily start on Disk 1 and run Win7 from Drive C: on Disk 0.

Have another look at Disk Management. You MUST have a System Partition;
otherwise the computer could not boot, no matter how many Active partitions
there may be.

Have you actually read KB 314470, which I gave you the link for earlier?
Here it is again, just in case:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/

As I said, we bandy around the term "boot" quite loosely, but it actually
doesn't mean what most of us assume that it means when we use terms like
"boot volume" or "boot drive". To repeat an oft-used expression, "We BOOT
from the SYSTEM partition and keep our operating SYSTEM files in the BOOT
volume."

I've never had a Dell, or any other branded computer in the past 20 years,
so I've not seen one with an OEM partition. But my guess is that yours came
with 3 partitions. The 3rd would be your Boot Volume, Drive C:. That one
need not be disturbed. The first two would be Dell's Recovery partition and
Win7's unlettered System Partition, but I don't know which one comes first
on the disk. But Disk Management will show you. One - and only one - of
them will be marked Active. And ONE of them was originally the System
Partition. When you installed your second HDD - or afterwards - you
apparently fouled up the arrangement somehow. All you really needed to do
after that was to restore the Active designation to the correct partition,
and Disk Management could do that for you. But I don't know what other
changes may have been made since then, so I'm not sure what you should do
next.

My booting Disk 0 has three partitions displayed, the OEM Partition which
has no name and is the first one; the Recovery partition which is the
second one; and the OS (C partition, which is described as the primary
partition, and it now active.

Not "THE" primary partition. Each physical disk has a Partition Table that
can hold exactly FOUR partition entries. EACH of this is a Primary
Partition - unless one is an Extended Partition, which can be further
divided into multiple Logical Drives. Each primary partition and each
logical drive is a "volume"; each can be assigned a "drive" letter and
formatted independently of all others. But only one of the primary
partitions can be the Active (bootable) partition on that HDD. So each of
your three partitions should have the words "Primary Partition" in the
Status column, but only one should also say "Active" - and that one should
also say "System".

It might help if you could use Win7's Snipping Tool or another utility to
take a snapshot of your Disk Management screen and post it here. Be sure to
widen the Status column so that we can see which partitions have the System
and Boot labels. And be sure to include enough of the Graphical View so
that we can see the layout of the partitions on your two HDDs.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[John Aldred]

R. C. White wrote:

Perhaps the most confusing aspect is the counterintuitive meanings of
"boot"
and "system", as in the Boot Volume and System Partition. The definitions
- surprising to a lot of computer users - are here:
Definitions for system volume and boot volume
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/

Thanks for clarifying that. It is certainly counterintuitive with respect
to the meaning of "boot"

[snip]

To eliminate (?) some of this confusion, Win7 also introduced the
un-lettered System Partition at the beginning of Disk 0.

Does the Win 7 installer always do this, or is it possible to install the
Boot and System components in the same primary partition on Drive 0 ?

I ask because I partitioned and formatted a new hard disk, and then
installed Win 7 to the first partition on the disk. According to my disk
partitioning utility (Paragon Partition Manager), the only partitions on
the disk are those that I originally created, and the first one containing
Win 7 is marked as active.

 

[Michael Walraven]

In my Windows 7 pro 32 bit desktop Dell machine my partitions :

{no name}:Simple:Basic:{no system}:Healthy (OEM
Partition):55MB:55MB:100%:No:N0%

(C:Simple:Basic:NTFS:Healthy(System,Boot,Page File,Active,Crash
Dumprimary Partition):465.60GB:303.29GB:65% No:0%

Michael

R. C. White wrote:

Perhaps the most confusing aspect is the counterintuitive meanings of
"boot"
and "system", as in the Boot Volume and System Partition. The
definitions
- surprising to a lot of computer users - are here:
Definitions for system volume and boot volume
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/

Thanks for clarifying that. It is certainly counterintuitive with respect
to the meaning of "boot"

[snip]

To eliminate (?) some of this confusion, Win7 also introduced the
un-lettered System Partition at the beginning of Disk 0.

Does the Win 7 installer always do this, or is it possible to install the
Boot and System components in the same primary partition on Drive 0 ?

I ask because I partitioned and formatted a new hard disk, and then
installed Win 7 to the first partition on the disk. According to my disk
partitioning utility (Paragon Partition Manager), the only partitions on
the disk are those that I originally created, and the first one containing
Win 7 is marked as active.

 

[Bill Blanton]

Hi, Al.

There's WAY too much static in this thread! :>( (And, yes, I've
contributed my share.)

And way too much emphasis on the "active" partition. Since you have two
HDDs in your computer now, you can have two partitions marked Active -
one on each physical disk.

Active means something to the BIOS, but it doesn't mean anything to
Windows, really.

Actually, the BIOS doesn't care anything about disk structure, including
a partition entry's active flag. All the BIOS cares about is that there
is a valid sector-0 on the storage device. It simply loads sector zero,
of the device that is set to boot, into memory and jump into it.

The code in sector-0 (the MBR) looks for the active flag among the 4
partition table entries, and then jumps into the volume specific boot
sector. Most MBR code works this way, however, if a boot manager is
installed, for example, then the boot process will go through the boot
manager before loading the "system" volume boot sector. (whereas in
Windows case, IO.SYS or ntldr are then searched, as you described)

There is a possibility that one of the OP's OEM volumes was set active,
and then would pass control to Windows7 system partition.... This would
give the OEM a chance to do the "back to factory" restore from the on
disk image, or possibly run diagnostics.

All it means to the BIOS is that the partition MIGHT be
used to boot the computer - but it can't actually BE used to boot unless
it contains a boot sector and the startup files: bootmgr (a filename
with no extension) and the BCD (Boot Configuration Data), which is
contained in the folder named \Boot. The BCD consists of about 6 files
and 26 folders, mostly language folders. These are all Hidden and System
files and folders, of course, so you'll have to deal with those
Attributes to see them. But if they are not on the Active partition,
then that is NOT the SYSTEM Partition and can't be used to boot Win7.

The boot sector is the first physical sector of a bootable physical
partition. It is not a file; it is not a part of NTFS or any other file
system, so it can't be seen by Windows Explorer or most programs. But it
must be the first sector of the System Partition, because it tells the
BIOS what kind of file system to expect on that partition and whether to
look for MSDOS.SYS (for Win9x or earlier) or NTLDR (for Win2K/XP/NT) or
bootmgr (for Vista/Win7) to start the process of "the system pulling
itself up by its own bootstraps" to "boot" the computer. For Win7, BIOS
reads the boot sector, which tells it to find bootmgr in the Root of the
System Partition. At this early stage in the boot process, the computer
doesn't yet know about partitions and folders, so the critical files
MUST be in the ROOT of that Active partition on the HDD designated in
the BIOS as the current Boot Device.


Have you looked at the partition on Disk 1, your new HDD? Win7 is not
prejudiced; it is perfectly happy to have the System Partition on any
HDD in your computer. If Disk 1 was designated as the Boot Device in the
BIOS at the time you ran Setup, then Setup would have created the
necessary boot sector and files on the Active partition on THAT HDD,
making it the System Partition. Files in that partition would still
point back to the Win7 installation's Boot Folder C:\Windows on the
first HDD, and the computer would happily start on Disk 1 and run Win7
from Drive C: on Disk 0.

Have another look at Disk Management. You MUST have a System Partition;
otherwise the computer could not boot, no matter how many Active
partitions there may be.

Have you actually read KB 314470, which I gave you the link for earlier?
Here it is again, just in case:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/

As I said, we bandy around the term "boot" quite loosely, but it
actually doesn't mean what most of us assume that it means when we use
terms like "boot volume" or "boot drive". To repeat an oft-used
expression, "We BOOT from the SYSTEM partition and keep our operating
SYSTEM files in the BOOT volume."

I've never had a Dell, or any other branded computer in the past 20
years, so I've not seen one with an OEM partition. But my guess is that
yours came with 3 partitions. The 3rd would be your Boot Volume, Drive
C:. That one need not be disturbed. The first two would be Dell's
Recovery partition and Win7's unlettered System Partition, but I don't
know which one comes first on the disk. But Disk Management will show
you. One - and only one - of them will be marked Active. And ONE of them
was originally the System Partition. When you installed your second HDD
- or afterwards - you apparently fouled up the arrangement somehow. All
you really needed to do after that was to restore the Active designation
to the correct partition, and Disk Management could do that for you. But
I don't know what other changes may have been made since then, so I'm
not sure what you should do next.


Not "THE" primary partition. Each physical disk has a Partition Table
that can hold exactly FOUR partition entries. EACH of this is a Primary
Partition - unless one is an Extended Partition, which can be further
divided into multiple Logical Drives. Each primary partition and each
logical drive is a "volume"; each can be assigned a "drive" letter and
formatted independently of all others. But only one of the primary
partitions can be the Active (bootable) partition on that HDD. So each
of your three partitions should have the words "Primary Partition" in
the Status column, but only one should also say "Active" - and that one
should also say "System".

It might help if you could use Win7's Snipping Tool or another utility
to take a snapshot of your Disk Management screen and post it here. Be
sure to widen the Status column so that we can see which partitions have
the System and Boot labels. And be sure to include enough of the
Graphical View so that we can see the layout of the partitions on your
two HDDs.

Good idea. Hope it isn't too late ;-)

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, John.

the only partitions on
the disk are those that I originally created, and the first one containing
Win 7 is marked as active.

"Active" is just about as confusing as "boot". And so is "primary". See my
latest Reply to Al, 4:57 PM (CST) today.

In general speech, "primary" means "first". But on a hard disk, "primary"
just means it's not an "extended" partition. There can be up to 4
partitions on each HDD, of which ONE may be an extended partition; all the
others are primary partitions. So there can be as many as 4 primary
partitions on each physical disk drive. Each subdivision of an extended
partition is a "logical drive"; there can be a dozen or more of these - the
only limits are disk space and letters in the English alphabet.

But only one primary partition at a time on each physical disk can have its
"Active bit" set, designating that partition as the one holding the startup
files that can find and load the operating system. If there are 3 HDDs in
the computer, then there can be 3 Active partitions, but only the one the
BIOS expects to boot from matters. The others are active, but So What?

If there is more than one physical disk, how does the computer know which
one to look on for an active partition? This information is held in the
BIOS, which is not a part of Windows or any other operating system. It's
coded into non-volatile memory, a part of the computer hardware, so that
it's there when power is turned on and doesn't need to be read from a disk
at all. Each computer includes a utility, also built into non-volatile
memory, that lets us make a few changes - such as how many hard drives,
floppies, optical drives and other devices are attached. This BIOS utility
also lets us designate which one of those devices will serve as the "boot
device" on the next restart. Usually this will be the first HDD - the one
connected to the first connector on the motherboard - but we can change it.
That's how we choose to boot from floppy or DVD or from the third HDD. And
if we do choose to boot from the third HDD, then the primary partition on
that HDD that has the Active bit set will become the System Partition - for
THAT session. If we set the BIOS to boot from the first HDD next time, we
will have a different System Partition for that next session.

So the meaning of "primary" partition is relatively fixed when the physical
disk is partitioned. "Active" is defined for that disk when we set the
Active bit for it. A "System Partition" is created when Setup.exe writes
the boot sector and startup files to the Active primary partition on the
Boot device. And a Boot Volume is created when Setup.exe creates the
X:\Windows Boot Folder on any volume (X:?) on any HDD in the computer. That
becomes the Boot Volume for THAT OS.

Does the Win 7 installer always do this,

No. When Win7 Setup finds the System Partition already on a computer, it
will use that same System Partition for the new installation.

is it possible to install the
Boot and System components in the same primary partition on Drive 0 ?

Yes. In fact, this is the typical configuration before Win7: EVERYTHING in
a single primary partition on Disk 0. So most users never know that Windows
always installs as TWO segments - the small System segment and the humongous
Boot segment - because they are all in the same partition on most computers.

Even with Win7, it's possible to configure your system that way. But many
users have unintentionally wiped out the System Partition by formatting the
Boot Volume because they did not understand that they were both in the same
partition. So Win7 creates the small (100 MB?) partition without a letter
and installs the startup files there. Since the typical user can't imagine
a "drive" without a letter, the chances of accidentally deleting or
reformatting the System Partition is very small.


By the way, all this information is in the Help file for Disk Management.
That file is for the whole Microsoft Management Console, of which DM is only
a part, and it's organized as a reference, not a text or tutorial, so it
takes some searching, but there is LOTS of good information there.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

Perhaps the most confusing aspect is the counterintuitive meanings of
"boot"
and "system", as in the Boot Volume and System Partition. The
definitions
- surprising to a lot of computer users - are here:
Definitions for system volume and boot volume
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/

Thanks for clarifying that. It is certainly counterintuitive with respect
to the meaning of "boot"

[snip]

To eliminate (?) some of this confusion, Win7 also introduced the
un-lettered System Partition at the beginning of Disk 0.

Does the Win 7 installer always do this, or is it possible to install the
Boot and System components in the same primary partition on Drive 0 ?

I ask because I partitioned and formatted a new hard disk, and then
installed Win 7 to the first partition on the disk. According to my disk
partitioning utility (Paragon Partition Manager), the only partitions on
the disk are those that I originally created, and the first one containing
Win 7 is marked as active.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Bill.

Actually, the BIOS doesn't care anything about disk structure,

Thanks for the correction. ;<)

I still hope Al will get back to us with definitive information as to which
partition Disk Management identifies as "System".

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[Al Smith]

Hi, Al.

There's WAY too much static in this thread! :>( (And, yes, I've
contributed my share.)

And way too much emphasis on the "active" partition. Since you have two
HDDs in your computer now, you can have two partitions marked Active -
one on each physical disk.

Active means something to the BIOS, but it doesn't mean anything to
Windows, really. All it means to the BIOS is that the partition MIGHT be
used to boot the computer - but it can't actually BE used to boot unless
it contains a boot sector and the startup files: bootmgr (a filename
with no extension) and the BCD (Boot Configuration Data), which is
contained in the folder named \Boot. The BCD consists of about 6 files
and 26 folders, mostly language folders. These are all Hidden and System
files and folders, of course, so you'll have to deal with those
Attributes to see them. But if they are not on the Active partition,
then that is NOT the SYSTEM Partition and can't be used to boot Win7.

The boot sector is the first physical sector of a bootable physical
partition. It is not a file; it is not a part of NTFS or any other file
system, so it can't be seen by Windows Explorer or most programs. But it
must be the first sector of the System Partition, because it tells the
BIOS what kind of file system to expect on that partition and whether to
look for MSDOS.SYS (for Win9x or earlier) or NTLDR (for Win2K/XP/NT) or
bootmgr (for Vista/Win7) to start the process of "the system pulling
itself up by its own bootstraps" to "boot" the computer. For Win7, BIOS
reads the boot sector, which tells it to find bootmgr in the Root of the
System Partition. At this early stage in the boot process, the computer
doesn't yet know about partitions and folders, so the critical files
MUST be in the ROOT of that Active partition on the HDD designated in
the BIOS as the current Boot Device.


Have you looked at the partition on Disk 1, your new HDD? Win7 is not
prejudiced; it is perfectly happy to have the System Partition on any
HDD in your computer. If Disk 1 was designated as the Boot Device in the
BIOS at the time you ran Setup, then Setup would have created the
necessary boot sector and files on the Active partition on THAT HDD,
making it the System Partition. Files in that partition would still
point back to the Win7 installation's Boot Folder C:\Windows on the
first HDD, and the computer would happily start on Disk 1 and run Win7
from Drive C: on Disk 0.

Have another look at Disk Management. You MUST have a System Partition;
otherwise the computer could not boot, no matter how many Active
partitions there may be.

Have you actually read KB 314470, which I gave you the link for earlier?
Here it is again, just in case:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/

As I said, we bandy around the term "boot" quite loosely, but it
actually doesn't mean what most of us assume that it means when we use
terms like "boot volume" or "boot drive". To repeat an oft-used
expression, "We BOOT from the SYSTEM partition and keep our operating
SYSTEM files in the BOOT volume."

I've never had a Dell, or any other branded computer in the past 20
years, so I've not seen one with an OEM partition. But my guess is that
yours came with 3 partitions. The 3rd would be your Boot Volume, Drive
C:. That one need not be disturbed. The first two would be Dell's
Recovery partition and Win7's unlettered System Partition, but I don't
know which one comes first on the disk. But Disk Management will show
you. One - and only one - of them will be marked Active. And ONE of them
was originally the System Partition. When you installed your second HDD
- or afterwards - you apparently fouled up the arrangement somehow. All
you really needed to do after that was to restore the Active designation
to the correct partition, and Disk Management could do that for you. But
I don't know what other changes may have been made since then, so I'm
not sure what you should do next.


Not "THE" primary partition. Each physical disk has a Partition Table
that can hold exactly FOUR partition entries. EACH of this is a Primary
Partition - unless one is an Extended Partition, which can be further
divided into multiple Logical Drives. Each primary partition and each
logical drive is a "volume"; each can be assigned a "drive" letter and
formatted independently of all others. But only one of the primary
partitions can be the Active (bootable) partition on that HDD. So each
of your three partitions should have the words "Primary Partition" in
the Status column, but only one should also say "Active" - and that one
should also say "System".

It might help if you could use Win7's Snipping Tool or another utility
to take a snapshot of your Disk Management screen and post it here. Be
sure to widen the Status column so that we can see which partitions have
the System and Boot labels. And be sure to include enough of the
Graphical View so that we can see the layout of the partitions on your
two HDDs.

RC

Very informative post. Yes, I checked out the line. My computer is
all sorted out now, thanks. The active partition on Disk 0 was my
Recovery partition. Once I made that active again, as it had been
before I inadvertently made the main partition active, the
computer was able to boot without any problem. I find it
counter-intuitive that the partition with the OS on it is not the
partition from which the computer is booted, but I understand now
why it is done -- if the install of Windows becomes corrupted, the
computer can still boot from the Recovery partition.

-Al-

 

[Al Smith]

Hi, Bill.


Thanks for the correction. ;<)

I still hope Al will get back to us with definitive information as to
which partition Disk Management identifies as "System".

RC

I just checked -- the Recovery partition is identified as the
System partition.

-Al-

 

[John Aldred]

R. C. White wrote:

Yes. In fact, this is the typical configuration before Win7: EVERYTHING
in
a single primary partition on Disk 0. So most users never know that
Windows always installs as TWO segments - the small System segment and the
humongous Boot segment - because they are all in the same partition on
most computers.

Even with Win7, it's possible to configure your system that way. But many
users have unintentionally wiped out the System Partition by formatting
the Boot Volume because they did not understand that they were both in the
same
partition. So Win7 creates the small (100 MB?) partition without a letter
and installs the startup files there. Since the typical user can't
imagine a "drive" without a letter, the chances of accidentally deleting
or reformatting the System Partition is very small.

I think I must be missing the point here somewhere :-(
If a user unintentionally wipes out the System Partition by formatting the
Boot Volume - as you state above, I don't see this as a problem.

If a user formats the Boot Volume, surely that is in preparation for
re-installing the OS. In which case the System and Boot components would
recreated by the Win 7 installer.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:30:01 GMT, Al Smith wrote:

Very informative post. Yes, I checked out the line. My computer is
all sorted out now, thanks. The active partition on Disk 0 was my
Recovery partition. Once I made that active again, as it had been
before I inadvertently made the main partition active, the
computer was able to boot without any problem. I find it
counter-intuitive that the partition with the OS on it is not the
partition from which the computer is booted, but I understand now
why it is done -- if the install of Windows becomes corrupted, the
computer can still boot from the Recovery partition.

-Al-

I find that approach interesting (it's new to me).

If this will help to think about it: consider a multiboot system in which
each OS is on its own partition. Clearly, in this case, only one partition
could be the boot partition - the one with the boot menu - but each other
OS will ultimately boot from its own partition.

BTW, this computer is a Sony Vaio (single boot). The recovery partition is
NOT the boot partition, the C: drive is. However, pressing F10 in the BIOS
will get me to the recovery partition. I've tried it (carefully!), just to
see. In Disk Management, C: is labeled "System, Boot, Page File, Active,
Crash Dump, Primary Partition". Whew.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, John.

Most users have the typical arrangement: one HDD, one partition, which does
everything and serves as both System Partition and Boot Volume. Since no OS
will obey the command to commit suicide, that user can't simply boot into
that OS and give the command to Reformat C: or even to Delete C:\Windows.
He must boot from some other source, such as the WinXP CD or the Win7 DVD.
(Or even a floppy. That's what we had to do 20 years ago running MS-DOS,
remember? Boot from the floppy and run FDISK to create partitions and then
run Format.exe to format them - all from the floppy, not from the hard drive
that we were preparing for use. We couldn't just boot into Drive C: and
then Reformat C: from there.)

Even now, in the typical system, there's only one OS, so the user still has
to boot from a second source to Format C:.

But, when we get multiple HDDs or even multiple volumes on a single HDD,
things get more complicated. And when we add multiple OSes, it takes
planning to keep from doing more than we intended. Some jobs are still easy
(boot into Drive C: and Format X: - no problem). But when we install an OS
on X:, it still writes its startup files to the System Partition, probably
Drive C:. And then when we boot into X: and tell it to Reformat C:, it will
properly refuse because that's the System Partition for the whole system.

If a user formats the Boot Volume, surely that is in preparation for
re-installing the OS.

Not always. Sometimes the user simply wants to get rid of one OS while
preserving the others. Suppose you have WinXP on C:, Vista on D: and Win7
on E:. You're done with WinXP and want to delete it from your computer. So
you boot into Win7 and command: Format C:. Win7 refuses, but not because
it's WinXP's Boot Volume - it doesn't care about that; C:\Windows is "just
another folder" to Win7. It refuses because C: is also the current System
Partition - the one that was used to boot into the current Win7 session. So
the user says, "This is MY computer. Why won't it obey my order? I'll show
it who's BOSS!" So he finds a floppy or a Windows CD/DVD or a third-party
partition manager and formats Drive C: - or deletes it entirely. Then he
tries to reboot - and is told that there is no operating system.

If his intent was to install a new OS, he just reboots from that DVD and
continues. But if that is not what he intended, he will soon be on a
borrowed computer asking people in this NG what happened. All he did was
delete WinXP and now he can't boot into Vista or Win7. :>(

If you will read a week's worth of messages here or in similar NGs and
forums elsewhere, you will see many threads started by users in just such a
dilemma.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[Al Smith]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:30:01 GMT, Al Smith wrote:


I find that approach interesting (it's new to me).

If this will help to think about it: consider a multiboot system in which
each OS is on its own partition. Clearly, in this case, only one partition
could be the boot partition - the one with the boot menu - but each other
OS will ultimately boot from its own partition.

BTW, this computer is a Sony Vaio (single boot). The recovery partition is
NOT the boot partition, the C: drive is. However, pressing F10 in the BIOS
will get me to the recovery partition. I've tried it (carefully!), just to
see. In Disk Management, C: is labeled "System, Boot, Page File, Active,
Crash Dump, Primary Partition". Whew.

That's the arrangement I would expect, now that I've considered
the matter. But Dell does it another way.

-Al-

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Gene.

If this will help to think about it: consider a multiboot system in which
each OS is on its own partition. Clearly, in this case, only one partition
could be the boot partition - the one with the boot menu - but each other
OS will ultimately boot from its own partition.

Be careful how you use the term "boot partition"!

could be the boot partition - the one with the boot menu

But the partition with the boot menu is NOT the Boot Volume. It is the
System Partition.

And the "boot partition" is more properly called the "boot volume", because
it need not be a partition at all. It can be a logical drive in an extended
partition. But the System Partition, although sometimes referred to as the
"system volume", must be a primary partition.

but each other
OS will ultimately boot from its own partition.

No. Each will boot INTO its own boot volume. But each will START in the
System Partition - which will present the boot menu - after which the boot
process will branch to the chosen boot volume. A multi-booting computer has
multiple Boot Volumes, but only a single System Partition.

Like a tree with one or more branches. No matter which branch will
eventually receive the water from the soil, the water's path up to the
branches must start in the trunk of the tree. It can't just jump from the
soil to the branch. And no matter which OS's Boot Volume will get chosen,
the choice is made by the few files in the System Partition.

In Disk Management, C: is labeled "System, Boot, Page File, Active,
Crash Dump, Primary Partition". Whew.

Yes! Situation normal. When there is only a single partition, it must hold
everything. But even if they share a partition, the System and Boot
functions must each do its own separate job. So all the operating system
files will be in the Boot Folder; that's the many gigabytes of files in
Win7's C:\Windows folder tree. If there are multiple partitions, this Boot
Folder can be in any of them, Active or not - or in a logical drive in an
extended partition - on any HDD in the computer. But the
not-yet-fully-awake startup process can't find the boot manager if it is in
a folder; it MUST be in the Root of that System Partition. The fact that a
Boot Folder is also in the System Partition is OK, but not required.

In any case, the System Partition does its job, then transfers control to a
Boot Volume, wherever it is located. Even if it shares the same partition.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[John Aldred]

R. C. White wrote:

Not always. Sometimes the user simply wants to get rid of one OS while
preserving the others. Suppose you have WinXP on C:, Vista on D: and Win7
on E:. You're done with WinXP and want to delete it from your computer.
So
you boot into Win7 and command: Format C:. Win7 refuses, but not because
it's WinXP's Boot Volume - it doesn't care about that; C:\Windows is "just
another folder" to Win7. It refuses because C: is also the current System
Partition - the one that was used to boot into the current Win7 session.

I think I see what you are saying. Namely that Win 7 could have created it's
System partition on C:, irrespective of the fact that,(in your example
above) C: is apparently WinXP's Boot Volume. Yes, OK a separate System
partition is a good idea.

Well in my case life is simpler ( I think!) I usually only have one version
of Windows and one version of Linux running on the same computer, and use
GRUB as my boot manager. All my machines are from Dell. I've seen their
various setups over the years. I normally repartition the original drive,
add a second drive and start from scratch. That way I only have myself to
blame if things go wrong!

As an insurance policy I use a bootable CD from which I can run Acronis True
Image, and separate drive on which to store the image files.

 

[GreyCloud]

Hi, Gene.


Be careful how you use the term "boot partition"!


But the partition with the boot menu is NOT the Boot Volume. It is the
System Partition.

And the "boot partition" is more properly called the "boot volume",
because it need not be a partition at all. It can be a logical drive in
an extended partition. But the System Partition, although sometimes
referred to as the "system volume", must be a primary partition.


No. Each will boot INTO its own boot volume. But each will START in
the System Partition - which will present the boot menu - after which
the boot process will branch to the chosen boot volume. A multi-booting
computer has multiple Boot Volumes, but only a single System Partition.

Like a tree with one or more branches. No matter which branch will
eventually receive the water from the soil, the water's path up to the
branches must start in the trunk of the tree. It can't just jump from
the soil to the branch. And no matter which OS's Boot Volume will get
chosen, the choice is made by the few files in the System Partition.

Hmmm... reminds me of the old VMS file system. It pretty much allowed
one to boot into a maximum of 15 different operating systems. It had
the master directory name of [000000] and then the underlying os was
[000000].vms or it could be [000000].unix or something else.
I'm curious as to how win7 structures their os on the hard drive or
other drives in this fashion. I also wonder if David Cutler is still
working at microsoft. If he is, then dave is using his past experience
with vms. He used to be the team leader for DEC in the old days of VMS.

 

[Bill Blanton]

Hi, Gene.


Be careful how you use the term "boot partition"!


But the partition with the boot menu is NOT the Boot Volume. It is the
System Partition.

And the "boot partition" is more properly called the "boot volume",
because it need not be a partition at all. It can be a logical drive
in an extended partition. But the System Partition, although sometimes
referred to as the "system volume", must be a primary partition.


No. Each will boot INTO its own boot volume. But each will START in
the System Partition - which will present the boot menu - after which
the boot process will branch to the chosen boot volume. A
multi-booting computer has multiple Boot Volumes, but only a single
System Partition.

Like a tree with one or more branches. No matter which branch will
eventually receive the water from the soil, the water's path up to the
branches must start in the trunk of the tree. It can't just jump from
the soil to the branch. And no matter which OS's Boot Volume will get
chosen, the choice is made by the few files in the System Partition.

Hmmm... reminds me of the old VMS file system. It pretty much allowed
one to boot into a maximum of 15 different operating systems. It had the
master directory name of [000000] and then the underlying os was
[000000].vms or it could be [000000].unix or something else.
I'm curious as to how win7 structures their os on the hard drive or
other drives in this fashion.

The on disk structures are basically the same as they have been since
DOS. What changed significantly is the method that the NT loader uses to
find and load the structures (or objects as they are now known).

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/firmware/bcd.mspx

I also wonder if David Cutler is still
working at microsoft. If he is, then dave is using his past experience
with vms. He used to be the team leader for DEC in the old days of VMS.

According to wikipedia he is still there working on Azure.