Question Remove an Active System Partition

[hasansam]

I have an active system partition that I had windows installer on it.
After the windows installation the partition is still here and is now marked as Active System Partition.
I am unable to delete or shrink its size for to allocate to another partition.
New Volume(D

 

[viveknayyar007]

Hello

Usually it is NOT recommended to make any changes to the partition that has Windows installed in it. Also, if Windows doesn't allow you shrink the system partition, this means that the partition doesn't have enough space to spare and shrink down.

That said, it's best to leave the partition as is.

Please report back if I was unable to understand your question, and there's something else you'd want to do with the partition.

In the meantime, you can find some detailed information about Disk Management and partitions here.

Cheers!!

 

[hasansam]

Windows is installed on C:
I meant the windows installer is on the volume D: in which I can't format it or delete it

 

[USAFRet]

Windows is installed on C:
I meant the windows installer is on the volume D: in which I can't format it or delete it

One of the many reasons you shouldn't use your hard drive as a location for th WINdows installer.
Use a removable USB instead.

Possibly one of the 3rd party partition tools can manage that partition?

I strongly recommend having a full backup of that drive, just in case things go wrong.

 

[Math Geek]

"active" partition means this is where the BIOS knows to look for boot information. this information tells BIOS where a windows installation is located so it can hand off the boot-up process to Windows.

without this partition, your system WILL NOT boot, since BIOS won't be able to find ANY OS's to boot. if you're running a multi-boot set-up, all the OS info is stored here. this is why windows won't let you mess with it at all.

to change this, you'll have to make an active partition elsewhere that works and then you can manipulate that space. but it's not that easy really and the first thing you'll have to do is remove that as the active partition, which will as noted make the system unable to boot until you create and set a new working active partition.

honestly, the easiest way is to start over on a fresh hdd and install windows from a usb stick like normal. it is possible, but in my experience it's easier and faster to simply start over with a clean drive and new partitions done right.

 

[onespeedbiker]

As mentioned, Windows created the Active partition in question and will not operate without it. Usually the Windows active partition does not have a letter designation, rather it is the first Partition on the 0 Disk followed by the C: partition on the same drive. What may have happened is the hard disk was designated with a letter, possibly D and you used migration software to move Windows tp new drive, so when Windows was migrated it used D: as the Active primary partition. It's doubtful this can be fixed without a reinstall. What you really want to do is not to make the partition inactive (because that would make windows inoperable) but delete the letter designation D: of the active primary partition so it becomes part of Disk 0, but i don't think that can be done. You can try remove the letter designation by using the Change letter option in disk management, but it probably will not allow you to simply remove the letter designation , and even if it worked, it might still make Windows inoperable.

 

[SkyNetRising]

So much wrong responses.

Fix is pretty easy.
Shrink D: by 500MB, create a new bootloader partition, set it active and create bootloader files onto it.
If you can't shrink D: partition, then run disk defragmenter on it first.
You can do it manually or execute these commands from elevated command prompt:
(If you get error in any step, then stop immediately!)

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 1​

list partition​

select partition 3​

shrink desired=500​

create partition primary​

format fs=ntfs quick​

active​

assign letter=H​

exit​

bcdboot c:\windows /s H:​

Reboot your system to check, if it can boot properly. Have windows installation media ready just in case, if something has gone wrong.

After reboot D: partition will no longer be "system" and you can do, whatever you want with it.