KamilKozyra asks:
I have a few hard drive partition questions.
What does “make a partition active” mean? Does it put it into the boot menu? If not, how do I add a hard drive’s system image into a PC’s boot menu?
Thanks! 
Browser: Firefox 17
System: Windows 7
Tagged: hardware tips, manage partition, partition, windows 7, windows tips
System: Windows 7
Tagged: hardware tips, manage partition, partition, windows 7, windows tips
14 Answers - Write an Answer
ha14
November 24, 2012Mark a partition as active
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Mark-a-partition-as-active
Marking a partition as active is an advanced task that should only be performed by advanced users. Marking a partition as active on a basic disk means that the computer will use the loader (an operating system tool) on that partition to start the operating system.
Abba Jee
November 24, 2012The MBR (Master Boot Record) contains information about the status
and the location of all partitions on your system. The ‘active’ (active partition) status simply tells our system which partition to boot from. This partition
must contain an OS (Operating System), otherwise it cannot be used
as a boot able partition.
Entire procedure can be different when you’re using a boot manager on
your system. A boot manager can install itself in the MBR and ignore
the partition table, thereby also ignoring the ‘active’ status.
I guess windows OS need to be installed on active partition on the other hand linux doesn’t really care about it
I somehow agree with you but your last line were wrong as OS is loaded by BIOS where MBR records the byte address of the boot-able files so that any os can booted
November 26, 2012bios looks for booting device instead of OS, anyway thanks for correcting me
November 30, 2012if bios look for booting device then it again look for active partition of that device like in a boot-able cd rom
November 30, 2012ok sir, thank you
November 30, 2012Very good explanation. thanks. I have learned something.
December 4, 2012Jim Chambers
November 25, 2012You can’t boot from a hard drive system image file. It must be extracted onto a HDD, SDD or suitably prepared flash drive.
Nikhil Chandak
November 25, 2012check out these links
http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/a/activepa.htm
http://www.pcdisk.com/
Rakesh Mishra
November 25, 2012you can use Active Partition Manager which is a freeware application that helps you to manage storage devices and the logical drives or partitions that they contain. You may create, delete, format and name partitions on your computer without shutting down the system. Most configuration changes take effect immediately.
maria
November 26, 2012The active partition is the partition where the boot flag is set.
A boot flag is a 1-byte value in a non-extended partition record, within a master boot record. Its primary function is to indicate to a MS-DOS/MS Windows-type boot loader which partition to boot. In some cases it is used by Windows XP/2000 to assign the active partition the letter “C:”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_flag here
November 26, 2012Prasanth Mathialagan
November 26, 2012As everybody mentioned, active partition is the one in which operating system resides. It is possible to convert your current windows 7 operating system into a system image(vhdk file) and export into an external hard drive(so that you can carry your os with you!! sweet!! isn’t it??). You can boot from it by changing the boot priority. I’m not sure whether it is possible to make the image appear in the boot menu.
Usman Mubashir
November 26, 2012the HDDs you can view in My Computer are active,
Duy Nguyen Minh
November 29, 2012Use Hirent boot cd active partition. it easy.
dhanunjayarao chunduri
December 1, 2012The MBR (Master Boot Record) contains information about the status
and the location of all partitions on your system. The ‘active’ (active partition) status simply tells our system which partition to boot from. This partition
must contain an OS (Operating System), otherwise it cannot be used
as a boot able partition.
Felix Göhringer
December 2, 2012An active partition is the partition your computer will boot from. There can be only one active partition at a time.
Adriel Tan
December 6, 2012An active partition basically means that the computer will boot from that partition. DO NOT change it if you do not know what you are doing. Doing so may result in data lost.
Joel Jacob
December 11, 2012An active partition is a partition on a hard drive set as the bootable partition that contains the operating system. Only one partition on each hard drive can be set as an active partition or bootable partition. For example, if you are using Microsoft Windows the partition that contains Windows is the active partition.
Ramón García
December 13, 2012This is the partition the computer boot from