How to mark partition as active

[Kaysel]

I am using a Windows XP system. I had recently formatted it. I added one more hard drive in the system. When I checked in Disk Management I can see the drive. But it is grayed out. I can't make the partition as active. The drive is formatted in NTFS format. Any ideas on it.

[Wooody]

I think there is some issue with the system. Can you the hard drive in bios. If yes then try to format the same once again. The option is grayed that means you are not allowed to make any changes to the hard drive. Just format it in a proper way. And the best way to do this is using a Windows XP bootable disc. That works in much better way.

[sunny]

Does the drive used in your system is a SCSI. This looks like some issue with standards. The drive must be detected and it must allow you to format it in the required format. Or else it will be unusable. I will advice you to check the cables and go in bios. Look for any settings related to hard drives. You will find more information on the same in the motherboard documentations.

[Myra]

Check the drive specification. There are number of third party software's which are capable of giving you option to deal with different drive problems. If the drive does not react then it means there kind of some kind of hardware failure. Also the drive can be locked. You can test the drive by connecting the same on some other working system.

[klaus2]

I had plugged a external hard drive to my notebook. It has Windows XP and it works with no issue. But somehow Vista is unstable to read the same drive. I had checked in Device Manager and nothing is listed over there. It looks some kind of issue with Vista due to drivers. I cannot get the right conclusion on it. Thanks.

[Amosz]

I think this is some kind of problem with the device driver. When you hook the hard driver the new hardware found wizard must appear on the screen or it might not work well. There are chances that the device fails to respond properly in case of poor driver output. Run Windows Update once and then check again.

[klaus2]

I had checked the hard drive. It is still detected in BIOS. But somehow Vista is unable to read it. I changed the port, updated drivers, etc. But on Windows XP the same drive works. I cannot get the difference. I hope Vista get some updates for it.