Greg, I have the same problem with the active command on diskpart. all other commands up to that point worked fine. I get the same error:
Virtual Disk Error:
The specified partition type is not valid for this operation.
I have just to partitions c:xp and z:win7. In the z:win7 z was given to me by the system.
I copied and read all the info in many posts after post 55 and did not recogonize an actual fix for this problem.
Denny