Diskpart Make Partition Active

Diskpart command line: active is to make partition ready for system installing. We shared how to set partition active in Windows 10 in previous guide with 3 methods: diskpart command line, Windows Disk management and our all-in-one partition managing software Partition Expert. We'd like to add more details on how to make partition active in diskpart.

NOTE: Like we said before, this active command shall be set on a primary partition with boot sector and boot loader, if there's no such elements in the partition, you will have the computer unbootable.

Make partition active using Diskpart command line:

• 1. In Windows 10, we type CMD in the search bar, and right-click on it to run as administrator, type diskpart and click Yes to run diskpart.exe; Of course, Press Windows Key + R and directly type diskpart maybe faster if you've got used to command lines, click Yes to the UAC window;
• 2. Type list disk in diskpart.exe, then all the disks connected to the computer will be listed below;
• 3. Type sel disk 1 to select disk 1 or another disk you would like to install the system on, 'sel' means 'select', don't worry this expression, it works fine;
• 4. Type list partition to list all the partitions on the selected disk;
• 5. Type sel partition to choose the destination partition our new system will installed to;
• 6. Type active to make this partition active.

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.14393.0

Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: DESKTOP-71L2S6I

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          512 GB  7401 MB
  Disk 1    Online          100 GB    58 GB
  Disk 2    Online          600 GB   599 GB        *

DISKPART> sel disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Primary             59 GB  1024 KB
  Partition 0    Extended            33 GB    66 GB
  Partition 3    Logical             33 GB    66 GB
  Partition 2    Primary            411 GB   100 GB

DISKPART> sel partition 1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> active

DiskPart marked the current partition as active.

DISKPART>

See all the screenshots guide

Some errors may show:

1. The specified partition is a not a primary or logical volume: This error show when the partition you selected is 'extended partition'. 'Active partition' command will take effect on primary or logical volume, and the system can only be installed on the primary partition (MBR disk), so we shall convert logical partition to primary partition first and rerun the command 'sel disk'.

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 0    Extended            41 GB  1024 KB
  Partition 1    Logical             41 GB  1088 KB
  

2. The specified partition type is not valid for this operation: when we select logical partition this time, this error shows, so why diskpart just guide us to select primary partition directly?

Another way to make partition active in diskpart command line is to directly list all the volumes in one command and select the primary partition to active, commands are followed:

• 1. list volume #diskpart will list all the partitions in the computer, even when they are in different disks;
• 2. sel volume 1 #select the primary partition and press enter;
• 3. active #make this partition active

DISKPART> list volume

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     Z                       DVD-ROM         0 B  No Media
  Volume 1     C   System       NTFS   Partition     59 GB  Healthy    System
  Volume 2     D                FAT32  Partition     33 GB  Healthy
  Volume 3     E   Tools        NTFS   Partition    411 GB  Healthy
* Volume 4     F                NTFS   Partition     41 GB  Healthy
  Volume 5     I                NTFS   Partition   5120 KB  Healthy
  Volume 6                      FAT32  Partition    260 MB  Healthy    Hidden

DISKPART> sel volume 1

Volume 1 is the selected volume.

DISKPART> active

DiskPart marked the current partition as active.

DISKPART>

Not familiar with commands? We have diskpart.exe alternative, graphically designed disk manager Partition Expert to make partition active:

• 1. Download this portable software and Run, or download our bootable ISO file and burn it to CD/USB to Run;
• 2. In the main interface, Partition Expert listed all the partitions and disks in the disk-map, right-click on the partition and choose 'Set Active' to make this partition active;
Warning: Setting this partition as active partition will set other primary partition(s) inactive.
Are you sure you want to set the partition as active?
• 3. Click 'Yes' to this message and click 'Commit' to run;

If you're using bootable Partition Expert on a CD, you can set active partition in BIOS and specify boot order, click Exit and Yes to save changes in the end.