How to Make a Drive Active on XP

Setting a disk drive or partition as Active in Windows XP enables your computer to launch an alternative operating system from that drive. This feature is generally useful for troubleshooting, as it allows you to access malfunctioning or incompatible software or hardware components. Once set as Active, the disk drive or partition takes the primary role during the computer’s startup sequence while giving secondary boot priority to all other volumes. Note that you must have administrative access to set a drive as Active.


Instructions

1. Click the “Start” menu, and then right-click “My Computer” and select “Manage” from the context menu.

2. Click the “Disk Management” tab from the left pane to display all available disk drives.

3. Right-click the disk drive you wish to set as Active from the right pane and select “Mark Partition as Active” from the context menu.


Tips & Warnings

Only set a drive or partition as Active if it contains a working operating system. Otherwise, your computer will not launch properly next time you restart it.



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