Remove Active status from a partition

One of my disk drives is set to "Active, Primary" It does not contain the Operating system so I do not want it to be labeled "Active" How can I remove the "Active" setting so that it is simpy a "Primary" partition?

 

Normally, if there is one or more Primary partitions on a drive, one of them is marked as Active (OS or not).

Is there a particular reason you don't want it Active?

You could try using the Disk Editor. Right-click on the "Disk #" (in Manual Mode) and select Advanced >> Edit, then View >> As Partition Table. Next, uncheck the "boot" checkbox for the partition. Finally, Edit >> Save Sector.

 

Thanks for the response. One of my drives (not with the OS) is set to "Active, Primary" Occasionally when I boot, my computer tries to boot from that drive. I have to go to the Bios and reset the boot sequence to ignore that drive. I thought that if I could remove the "Active" status, the problem would be corrected.

I tried your process, but when I got to "uncheck the "boot" checkbox" I don't seem to have such a checkbox. Can you be a little more specific about that step? I'm using Vista Home Premium.

Thanks.

 

philgoff:

There is a picture in this post that illustrates what you should see.

 

Actually, if that's the problem, you'll most likely still get an error when it happens because the drive still won't boot.

If you often boot from other devices (USB drives, flashdrives, etc.), the BIOS boot order settings in some computers do not return to their previous setting when the device is removed and you try to boot normally. One of my computers is like this and it's really irritating. If I just make one change, say boot from a flashdrive and then remove the flashdrive and reboot, it usually does okay. If I boot from several different drives it usually completely rearranges the boot order. There really doesn't seem to be a solution because the BIOS does what it does. I've gotten so I just go into the BIOS and check every time as it's quicker than booting the wrong device (that computer doesn't have a "boot device menu" key -- I wish it did).