should my C: drive be labelled as "active"?

[shuggy]

Hello computer literate people.
Can anyone please tell me why my C: drive does not say it is "active".
I have a Dell laptop with a 250GB HDD that can be seen here as disk 0.

A couple of questions:

1) Why do i have a FAT32 partition of 3.30GB that says "unknown partition". Should it also be NTFS and does it state as "unknown" because i haven't formatted it properly? I am running XP and a friend reckons Dell do some weird thing to their installation disks. I am happy to format this disk again and keep 25GB for the C: drive and split the balance into "data1" and "data2".

2) Why does my C: drive say "System" and not "Active" after the word "Healthy"? Is this correct?

3) I right clicked the "Z" and "H" partitions and selected "Make partition as active" cos i was hoping it would deselect it and eventually make the C: active. Now i can't get rid of the "Active" word in brackets on these 2 drives. Wil this affect my computer's ability to boot up properly?

4) If i want a hard drive just for storage like the "X" drive called that is currently being formatted, do i make it an "extended partition" or "logical drive"? I believe the "primary partition" option should only be used for the C: drive where the OS is kept?

Thanks for any assistance with this. I'm worried if i turn off my PC, i won't be able to boot it back up again

 

[shuggy]

I just noticed the screenshot looks a bit blurry so i have also uploaded a clickable file with more detail.

 

[aaarghhh]

Hello computer literate people.
Can anyone please tell me why my C: drive does not say it is "active".
I have a Dell laptop with a 250GB HDD that can be seen here as disk 0.

Get a MacBookPro

A couple of questions:

1) Why do i have a FAT32 partition of 3.30GB that says "unknown partition". Should it also be NTFS and does it state as "unknown" because i haven't formatted it properly? I am running XP and a friend reckons Dell do some weird thing to their installation disks. I am happy to format this disk again and keep 25GB for the C: drive and split the balance into "data1" and "data2".

Might possibly be a hidden partition with the Win95 setup files for your Dell with the .cab files and stuff for reinstalling the OS.

2) Why does my C: drive say "System" and not "Active" after the word "Healthy"? Is this correct?

Its supposed to say System. It is default set to Active.

3) I right clicked the "Z" and "H" partitions and selected "Make partition as active" cos i was hoping it would deselect it and eventually make the C: active. Now i can't get rid of the "Active" word in brackets on these 2 drives. Wil this affect my computer's ability to boot up properly?

4) If i want a hard drive just for storage like the "X" drive called that is currently being formatted, do i make it an "extended partition" or "logical drive"? I believe the "primary partition" option should only be used for the C: drive where the OS is kept?

I've used both and they work. Currently I have a dynamic disk setup - spanned across some spare drives I didn't know I had in a cupboard.

Thanks for any assistance with this. I'm worried if i turn off my PC, i won't be able to boot it back up again

Please be very careful using the disk management. You need to make sure you have backups. Seek professional help as you can make costly mistakes with the clik of a button or two. Try whirlpool forums or have a comprehensive read of some of the technet FAQ's on disk management details.

Here is mine.

 

[WinstonWolfe]

Hello computer literate people.
Can anyone please tell me why my C: drive does not say it is "active".

Don't worry about........Windows Disk Management is a joke......and you shouldn't mess with it unless you understand partition management. The active partition, as in the one with the OS that is set to boot, doesn't necessarily show as active in Windows disk mgt.

I have a Dell laptop with a 250GB HDD that can be seen here as disk 0.

A couple of questions:

1) Why do i have a FAT32 partition of 3.30GB that says "unknown partition". Should it also be NTFS and does it state as "unknown" because i haven't formatted it properly? I am running XP and a friend reckons Dell do some weird thing to their installation disks. I am happy to format this disk again and keep 25GB for the C: drive and split the balance into "data1" and "data2".


As arrrrgggh the Mac fiend says, it is probably a Dell partition for troubleshooting hardware issues. But I don't know why you also have an EISA configured partition too. Historically, the Dell diagnostic partition has been around 60MB.

2) Why does my C: drive say "System" and not "Active" after the word "Healthy"? Is this correct?

not an issue, as per above....

3) I right clicked the "Z" and "H" partitions and selected "Make partition as active" cos i was hoping it would deselect it and eventually make the C: active. Now i can't get rid of the "Active" word in brackets on these 2 drives. Wil this affect my computer's ability to boot up properly?

that's something you should tell us after you reboot.
each individual hdd can have an active partition.
without specialist boot software, the hdd that boots is determined by the internal ribbon that connects to it.

4) If i want a hard drive just for storage like the "X" drive called that is currently being formatted, do i make it an "extended partition" or "logical drive"? I believe the "primary partition" option should only be used for the C: drive where the OS is kept?

a primary partition is a normal partition. it can't be divided further. there can only be 4 primaries on one hdd (without specialist software)

an extended partition is a primary partition that can be split into lots of logical drives.

if you don't intend to split the x drive into more than 4 partitions, don't use an extended or logical setup.

Thanks for any assistance with this. I'm worried if i turn off my PC, i won't be able to boot it back up again

If you don't have anything better to do with your time than mess with partitions, and you have 100hrs+ to blow, then download a prog called Bootit NG from Terabyte. It is in my view the most powerful partitioning and multiboot prog in the universe.

 

[shuggy]

Thanks for your replies aaarghhh and Winston.
FYI, i was able to reboot ok

 

[AlmostBob]

Do NOT alter the fat32 3.3GB partition <-- having screaming heebie jeebies --<
it is the recovery drive
dell do not provide system disks
they provide a recovery drive from which you can create a system disk, or which you can use to repair the system partition
it must be fat32 to work
ntfs drivers are not loaded when the pc is dead and has to be repaired

 

[Strannik]

sure they are
otherwise you wouldn't be able to repair it

 

[shuggy]

Thanks AlmostBob.
I don't remember creating this partition when i resinstalled XP so i assume it was done automatically and i will leave it alone.

Do NOT alter the fat32 3.3GB partition <-- having screaming heebie jeebies --<
it is the recovery drive
dell do not provide system disks
they provide a recovery drive from which you can create a system disk, or which you can use to repair the system partition
it must be fat32 to work
ntfs drivers are not loaded when the pc is dead and has to be repaired

 

[Strannik]

if you reinstalled from a CD you can delete this partition and use for your own needs, as it will be useless to you, you can always use that CD to repair