Why is a second primary partition visible? Shouldn't it be hidden?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sebastian Kaist
  • Start date Start date
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Sebastian Kaist

I created successfully a second primary partition on my hard disc.
When I booted later from the first primary partition I expected that the second is hidden/invisible.

But much to my surprise the second IS visible (as partition F:).

Why?

Do I have to declare other primary partitions explicitely "hidden" in order to hide them?
I thought this is default.

Or are other rpimary partitions only hidden when an OS (e.g. a second WinXP) is installed on them?

Sebastian
 
Sebastian said:
I created successfully a second primary partition on my hard disc.
When I booted later from the first primary partition I expected
that the second is hidden/invisible.

But much to my surprise the second IS visible (as partition F:).

Why?

Do I have to declare other primary partitions explicitely "hidden"
in order to hide them?
I thought this is default.

Or are other rpimary partitions only hidden when an OS (e.g. a
second WinXP) is installed on them?
Click to expand...

What made you believe that the second partition would be hidden?
 
Sebastian Kaist said:
I created successfully a second primary partition on my hard disc.
When I booted later from the first primary partition I expected that the
second is hidden/invisible.

But much to my surprise the second IS visible (as partition F:).

Why?

Do I have to declare other primary partitions explicitely "hidden" in
order to hide them?
I thought this is default.

Or are other rpimary partitions only hidden when an OS (e.g. a second
WinXP) is installed on them?

Sebastian
Click to expand...

All Windows OSs based on WinNT allow multiple primary partitions. They are
all visible by default.
 
Pegasus said:
All Windows OSs based on WinNT allow multiple primary partitions. They are
all visible by default.
Click to expand...
Just out of interest, can a partision be made "Hidden" during it`s creation
or after it`s creation ?
 
Formatted partitions are visible by default--you have to take action to have
them hidden.

--
Regards

Ron Badour
MS MVP
Windows Desktop Experience
 
It depends on the tool used to do the creating. Partition Magic, for
example, can create a partition and hide it in the process. Other tools may
not so afterwards you could use Tweak UI to hide the partition.

--
Regards

Ron Badour
MS MVP
Windows Desktop Experience
 
Sebastian said:
I created successfully a second primary partition on my hard disc.
When I booted later from the first primary partition I expected that the second is hidden/invisible.

But much to my surprise the second IS visible (as partition F:).

Why?

Do I have to declare other primary partitions explicitely "hidden" in order to hide them?
I thought this is default.

Or are other rpimary partitions only hidden when an OS (e.g. a second WinXP) is installed on them?

Sebastian
Click to expand...

XP is different to earlier versions (ME, Win98, 95 etc) You can have up
to 4 primary partitions on a single disk. These are not hidden by default.

Even if you had a second OS installed it would not be necessary to hide
the other partitions as NT based systems (Which XP is) use the boot.ini
file to determine which partition to boot from.

Alister
 
Sebastian Kaist said:
I created successfully a second primary partition on my hard disc.
When I booted later from the first primary partition I expected that the
second is hidden/invisible.

But much to my surprise the second IS visible (as partition F:).

Why?

Do I have to declare other primary partitions explicitely "hidden" in
order to hide them?
I thought this is default.

Or are other rpimary partitions only hidden when an OS (e.g. a second
WinXP) is installed on them?

Sebastian
Click to expand...

Windows XP setup, nor within XP and using its native tools can one create a
primary partition that is hidden.

A hidden partition must be unhidden to be visible. A primary partition must
be active to boot. A hidden primary partition is not bootable, nor is it
active. In order to boot a previously hidden partition, it must be unhidden
and made active. The other primary partition loses its active status, but
remains visible. This same "other" partiton must be marked hidden if that
is deemed appropriate by the user making that decision before booting from
the newly create partition. Some 3rd party boot managers do all of this
while making a selection of an OS from its menu, if properly setup within
that 3rd party software. XP's boot option does not operate like this,
rather, it presents its boot menu after the the visible and active partition
is booted from. There is no contingency for hidden partitions.

Windows setup can only install its system (boot) files to the currenly
active and visible partition. Further, windows setup can only continue to
install windows to a visible partition.

Some boot managers also offer a partition manager in tangent with the boot
manager software. In tandem, one can do what you seem to desire. There are
also separate type softwares for boot manager and partitioning software that
can achieve the same results. All are 3rd party, not offered by Microsoft.
 
The date and time was Sunday, April 26, 2009 12:56:30 AM, and on a whim,
(e-mail address removed) (Sebastian Kaist) pounded out on the keyboard:
I created successfully a second primary partition on my hard disc.
When I booted later from the first primary partition I expected that the second is hidden/invisible.

But much to my surprise the second IS visible (as partition F:).

Why?

Do I have to declare other primary partitions explicitely "hidden" in order to hide them?
I thought this is default.

Or are other rpimary partitions only hidden when an OS (e.g. a second WinXP) is installed on them?

Sebastian
Click to expand...

Hi Sebastian,

Window saw the drive and assigned it a drive letter. Do you have
TweakUI installed? If not:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

Open TweakUI after install and navigate to My Computer/Drives and
uncheck the drive/partition(s) you want hidden. Click OK when finished.

I've got 29 partitions on my three internal drives, since I create
backup partitions of my OS's & Program drives between them. When I
create the partition backup using Partition Magic, I set it to be
hidden. Although they're hidden from Explorer, they're still visible in
Disk Management.

Terry R.
 
How many partitions can be active?

Jim

Alister said:
XP is different to earlier versions (ME, Win98, 95 etc) You can have up
to 4 primary partitions on a single disk. These are not hidden by default.

Even if you had a second OS installed it would not be necessary to hide
the other partitions as NT based systems (Which XP is) use the boot.ini
file to determine which partition to boot from.

Alister
Click to expand...
 
You can make any one you want active, you can toggle the active flag
from one to the other but only one at a time can be active.

John
 
John said:
You can make any one you want active, you can toggle the active flag
from one to the other but only one at a time can be active.

John
Click to expand...

In what program(s) can you toggle the active flag on or off? For example,
I think in BING (BootItNG) in Maintenance Mode you can't toggle it off, but
I don't remember for sure. More below...

Are you sure? I think you can have 4 primary partitions on a disk even in
Win9x.
 
In what program(s) can you toggle the active flag on or off? For example,
I think in BING (BootItNG) in Maintenance Mode you can't toggle it off, but
I don't remember for sure.
Click to expand...

Why don't you fire it up and LOOK?
 
Thanks, John. I have never understood the concept. C can be the boot
partition, D can be the system partition, but which is the active partition?

Jim
 
This "Boot" and "System" partition business on Windows NT/2000/XP
operating systems is one of those things that confuses many. This in
large part is because of the terminology that Microsoft uses to identify
these partitions. The Microsoft nomenclature defines the following:

*Boot Partition*
The boot partition contains the Windows operating system and its support
files. By default, the Windows operating system files are in the WINDOWS
folder, and the supporting files are in the WINDOWS\System32 folder.
The boot partition can be, but does not have to be, the same as the
system partition. There will be one, and only one, system partition, but
there will be one boot partition for each operating system in a
multi-boot system.

*System Partition*
The system partition refers to the disk volume that contains the
hardware-specific files that are needed to start Windows, such as Ntldr,
Boot.ini, and Ntdetect.com. The system partition can be, but does not
have to be, the same volume as the boot partition.


Even many long time NT users have this information backwards. It just
seems counter intiuative to have them named as Microsoft does but once
you wrap your head around the idea the terminology does make sense.
Long time Windows 9x can easily remember which is which by remembering
the SYS.COM command. The SYS command copies *system* files to the
partition and writes or updates the boot sector to make the partition
bootable. So if you remember to SYS your drive to make it bootable you
will remember that the drive used to start Windows is the *SYStem* drive.

The System partition is the Active partition, it's the partition that
holds the NTDETECT.COM, ntldr and boot.ini files, these files are
required files to start Windows.

When you boot your computer, after the hardware tests pass:

1- The BIOS passes the boot process to the boot device, in this case
the hard drive.

2- The first sector on the drive, sector 0, holds the Master Boot
Record (MBR), the MBR takes over where the BIOS left off. The MBR has a
bit of code refered to as the Initial Program Loader (IPL), the IPL
looks in the Partition Table (also held in the MBR) and finds the Active
partition and pasess the boot process to the Boot Sector of the Active
partition.

3- The Active partition's Boot Sector contains code which identifies
the boot loader (ntldr) and its location. The boot sector passes the
boot process to ntldr.

4- Ntldr starts the Windows booting process, it reads the boot.ini file
and if it is intructed to start an NT type operating system it then
loads NTDETECT.COM to build the hardware list for Windows. Ntldr then
loads the NT kernel (NTOSKRNL) and the drivers for devices that are
identified as "boot devices" in the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSetnnn\Services key, these devives are
typically low level hardware devices like the keyboard and mouse, disk
controler, etc. After this point ntldr has completed its duties and the
NT kernel takes over and finishes the boot process.

John
 
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