# Can you set a GPT partition as "active"?



## SecretAsianMan (Apr 5, 2010)

Let's say I have a GPT-partitioned drive, and I want to put two separate FreeBSD installations on it.

Is there any way to set one or the other partition as active?  I want to control which installation gets booted.

I tried the following, got nowhere:

```
# gpart show md0
=>     34  7821245  md0  GPT  (3.7G)
       34      128    1  freebsd-boot  (64K)
      162  3902366    2  freebsd-ufs  (1.9G)
  3902528  3902366    3  freebsd-ufs  (1.9G)
  7804894    16385    4  freebsd-ufs  (8.0M)

# gpart set -a active -i 2 md0
gpart: attrib 'active': Device not configured
```


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