system partition
the BootMgr file and the BCD file are stored in the system partition
The system partition is the active partition of the hard drive and it contains the OS boot record. The boot partition is the partition where the Windows operating system is stored.
On MS platforms, the system partition is used to hold the boot files. The boot partition holds all the windows operating system files. Leave it to Microsuck to mis-lable the partition hiearchy. The system partition holds what is loaded and executed first after the computer runs through its preliminary BIOS boot sequence. It tells the computer where to start loading the operating system from; the boot partition. The boot partition is where all the program files (thousands of them) needed by the operating system are stored. If the system partition is deleted; the computer will not find the operating system. If the boot partition is deleted, again; the computer will not find the operating system.
boot partitionThe boot partition is the disk partition that contains the Windows operating system files and its support files, but not any files responsible for booting.
Most operating systems uses the boot partition to boot the computer. In some operating systems, both the system partition and the boot partition are used to boot up the system.
The active partition is the partition which is marked as Active in Index table. the status and locations of partitions are stored in MBR(master boot record). The active status tells the system which partition to boot from. System boots from the partition which contains the Operating System(windows XP, 2003.....). So the partition which contains the Operating System is Active partition and it is the Primary partition. So we can call the active partition as Bootable Partition or Primary Partition.
The BOOTMGR is a program that runs when you start your PC, and loads your operating system from the hard drive. When it is missing, Windows is unable to boot.
First of all boot partition must be active by default or your system will not boot. Second, there is not such thing as a system partition. There is a system disk which is usually located on boot partition. If you are asking about whether you can change size of boot partition in cost of another partition the answer is yes. The best way to do that is to use one utilities designed for such purposes, for instance, Acronis Disk Director.
The boot partition
/boot is where the Linux kernel images, as well as parts of the bootloader are stored. The "root" is simply the uppermost directory in a Unix/Linux file system. Any directory that is not given it's own partition will be placed as a subdirectory in the file system on the "root" partition. Assuming you gave a partition to /etc, /bin, /boot, /usr, and so on, you wouldn't need a "root" partition at all.
boot partition
Information for BIOS: the active partition is the partition from which an operating system (or another boot-loader) should be boot-loaded.