2 Responses to “Set Part”

1. Teddy
   November 22nd, 2010 @ 12:58 pm

   It sounds like you might be having a problem with your MBR (Master Boot Record.) If you have a windows disk, the easiest way is to just pop it in and hit Repair– it should do everything for you. If you dont have a disk, not, it gets a bit more complicated. You need to use a Linux LiveCD (I like Ubuntu.)

   1.) Download Ubuntu 9.04

   2.) Since it might be hard to get your cd drive to open, you want to make a live USB instead. You need a jump drive (USB drive, flash drive, etc.) Follow this guide to make a bootable Ubuntu USB.

   3.) Plug the USB into a port, restart, then pres F12 repeatedly immediately when the computer turns on on the first screen (or whatever button has a description to the effect of "change boot order." Select "Boot from USB"

   4.) Run the Default, not the OEM.

   5.) After ubuntu starts, it's time to fix the MBR. Click on Applications, Accessories, Terminal.

   Follow this guide and you should be good:

   If you encounter errors within the Ubuntu terminal i would encourage you to look carefully at the syntax of everything. perhaps it won't be word-for-word what's in the guide. i had to change a couple of things, but my hard drive was WAY screwed up when i did this.

   You can use this partition to make a dual boot, yes. Make sure it's in the right file format (i.e. if you're running vista and want to dual-boot XP, you need to make sure the file system is NTFS.) You should just be able to throw the OS disk in, boot from cd, and install to the correct partition. Let me know if you need more help with this.

2. Tara
   July 5th, 2011 @ 2:34 pm

   Basically Active Partition means that the partition is set to boot to an operating systerm. You are right to be concerned about marking partitions active without knowing how that will affect your machine. If you do it incorrectly then you can have an unbootable computer. You really only want a max of one active partition on a disk at a time. So forget about what you are hearing about marking the F partition active. That will cause you grief if it is on the same disk. On a dual boot situation, the boot loader will be on the active partition and it will tell the computer which partition it needs to load depending on whether you tell it to boot to XP or Windows 7.
   Ok the bottom line is don't worry about all the partition marking and unmarking, when you install the Operating System that will be taken care of for you. The only thing you have to worry about is installing the right operating system on the right partition. In your case, you will need to install Windows 7 on partition F.