The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Converting Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk Without Losing Data

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Emerican_Idiot, May 6, 2009.

  1. Emerican_Idiot

    Emerican_Idiot Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    182
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Alright I have 500GB hard drive connected to one of those Sata/IDE to USB cables so I can use it with my laptop. This past semester I used it in my Windows Server Administration class, where we had to install Windows Server 2003 on it and insert the drive into the swappable drive bay so I could use it with the computers at school. Our last lab which was for bonus marks was to convert the drive from Basic Disk to Dynamic Disk and once in Dynamic Disk do some other staff which isn't all the important. I really wanted the bonus mark so I converted the drive to Dynamic Disk. Now any computer other than XP I can't get it to run, however any other including Mac OSX will not recognize it. How do I convert the disk back to Basic Disk without losing the data?
     
    Emerican_Idiot, May 6, 2009
    #1
  2. hehe299792458

    hehe299792458 Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    175
    Messages:
    1,571
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    simply stated, you can't. Believe me, when my dynamic raid volume raid, I tried everything.

    How much data do you have on it? Could you move it somewhere else, format the hdd, and copy it back?
     
    hehe299792458, May 6, 2009
    #2
  3. newsposter

    newsposter Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    801
    Messages:
    3,881
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    105
    a bonus mark for making a single mouse click in disk manager?
     
    newsposter, May 6, 2009
    #3
  4. jackluo923

    jackluo923 Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    1,038
    Messages:
    3,071
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    105
    If you can get Acronis Disk Director 9 Server edition or some kind of "disk recovery software", then you can "convert" the dynamic disk back to a simple disk


    go to Disk Management

    delete ALL the partitions on the disk (do not do anything else what would write data to the disk!!!)

    right click the disk, Convert to Basic will not be grayed out any more, convert the disk to basic.

    Start Acronis or whatever you're using and undelete partitions.
     
    jackluo923, May 6, 2009
    #4
  5. Emerican_Idiot

    Emerican_Idiot Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    182
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Yeah I'm a 1st year student so this is basic Windows Administration... I also I had to create some volumes after I made the mouse click... still it was pretty easy.

    Are there any free disk recovery software that will do the job?
     
    Emerican_Idiot, May 7, 2009
    #5
  6. jackluo923

    jackluo923 Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    1,038
    Messages:
    3,071
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    105
    I've never used free disk recovery tools before. I'm sure they'll work just as good as paid version.

    E.g. ntfs get data back, active undelete..etc

    basically any recovery tool that will be able to recover fat32 or ntfs volumes will be fine.
     
    jackluo923, May 7, 2009
    #6
  7. night rider

    night rider Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    it seems that After you change a basic disk to a dynamic disk, the dynamic disk cannot be changed directly to the basic disk without third-party tools in case.

    There are the three ways to complete this work for you.
    Convert to basic disk via deleting all volumes on the dynamic disk.
    Convert to basic disk via using Partition Recovery Software.
    Convert to basic disk by using Dynamic Disk Converter.

    i read a article named How to Convert dynamic disk to basic disk withou lose date? and got the above info. i think it will be helpful to you. it will tells you how to convert step by step but you need a software called Dynamic Disk Converter, anyway, there must be something you need.
     
    night rider, Sep 11, 2009
    #7
  8. bww

    bww Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    5
    Messages:
    43
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    For anyone who has converted to dynamic by mistake wants to get back with no loss or reloading of the system just download partition wizard 4.2 and it does it without any problem.

    I am afraid I did this to a new HP laptop and was just starting to get the recovery disk out when I tried this program (free) and it worked great.
     
    bww, Nov 20, 2009
    #8