Set accessible partition on flash drive?

[LongLife]

So I've made 2 partitions on my flash drive using Bootice. I wanted to have one small partition for Hirens Boot and rest to use as storage.
So what I want to know is if there's a way to set accessible partition without using Bootice software ?
Also if it's possible to set all partitions to be visible at the same time ?

 

[VincentP]

Both partitions are always "accessible", but you may not be able to read the contents if the operating system does not support the file system you have used to format the partition.
One of the partitions can be marked as active, and there is an MBR indicating which partition will boot.
You can set the active partition and write the MBR with fdisk in Linux. In Windows, disk management can set the active partition and the Windows recovery process can write the MBR.
There are other disk management tools available for Windows too.

 

[LongLife]

Both partitions are always "accessible", but you may not be able to read the contents if the operating system does not support the file system you have used to format the partition.
One of the partitions can be marked as active, and there is an MBR indicating which partition will boot.
You can set the active partition and write the MBR with fdisk in Linux. In Windows, disk management can set the active partition and the Windows recovery process can write the MBR.
There are other disk management tools available for Windows too.

Thanks for the reply.

Well, I said accessible because in that software that I was using (Bootice) I have to click "Set Accessible" on the partition that I want to show up in My Computer.

So is it possible than to make both of those partitions show up in My Computer at the same time ? btw file system is FAT32 for both partitions.

Can you tell me how exactly can I use Disk Management in windows to choose which partition to boot ?

 

[VincentP]

Right hand click on the partition you want to boot and select "Mark Partition As Active". The MBR still needs to be written though, and Windows disk management can't do that.
If both partitions are formatted with fat32, you should already be able to see both in Windows Explorer.

 

[LongLife]

Hmm, that option is grayed out for me. I also asked someone about showing both partitions and they said it's unable to see them both because of windows limitations, however they should be both shown on linux.

 

[VincentP]

The BIOS partition table supported for MBR disks allows four partitions.
Both Windows and Linux allow you to see all these partitions. There is no limitation of one partition.
FAT32 is also supported by both Windows and Linux.
Linux file systems like EXT and JFS are not visible in Windows, and plugging the drive or usb key to a Windows machine may mean that Windows offers to format the partition.
NTFS is not necessarily supported in all Linux distributions.