how to remove 'system' attribute from a non-system partition?

[Vesper8]

Hello all.

I have 4 hard drives in my computer. One of them is improperly tagged as a 'system' partition. But it isn't, it's just one of my storage partitions. Because of it's system tag I am unable to change the drive letter of it in Vista RC1. And Vista erronously assigns the wrong drive letter to that partition. I need to change the letter. And so it seems I need to remove the improper 'system' attribute from the partition.

Does anyone know how I can do this without having to reformat the whole drive ?

thank you

 

[Pirotech]

if i'm not mistaken it can be changed only in disk management utility by removing the partition and then reinstalling it. unfortunelly you can't do this without reformating. you can backup all the staff then change the type of the partition.

 

[corkyg]

Another work around would be to remove the drive physically from its internal status. Then install it in an external case and hot plug it as "new" external drive. Then you can manage it and change the drive letter, etc., without reformatting or losing anything. That can be further confirmed by setting it for optimized for removal instead of performance. This turns off Write Caching. Also, exempt that drive from System Restore.

 

[Vesper8]

i see..

and what about 'active' tags ?

i thought only one drive has to have an 'active' partition.. your OS partition

but as it is I have 3 active partitions and 2 of em are just storage drives

i believe these anomalies are at the root of the problems i am having with dual booting with vista rc1 and xp.