how do you change a dynamic disc back to basic and still keep the data?

Status
Not open for further replies.

EricB

Chillin Techie
Messages
11,861
Location
USA
I was fixing sombody's computer that had 4 hard drives (2scsi with it own controller card, 2 ide that was on the raid slot on the mobo) that all 4 drive were in a raid setup. all 4 drives only took up 50 gig (1 was a 40 gig seagate, the other 3 gigs). he bought a 80 gig for me to tranfer all of the date to, and he want to use the 40gig as the OS drive.

I hook the 80 gig to the ide0 slot by itself. I format it in comp management (big mistake as it formatted it as a dynamic disc). I copied all of his data to it. then I erase his 40 gig and reinstalled windows. now windows dont recognized the dynamic disc. He doesn't want to lose his important data.

how do I make windows see it or convert it to basic without losing data? I think it was also formatted as fat32
 
Here is how to convert it using command lines on a server 2003 machine although it may work on an XP machine i've just never tried.

If you want to keep your data, move it to another volume before you convert the disk to a basic disk.

Open Command Prompt.
Type:
diskpart

At the DISKPART prompt, type:
list disk

Make note of the dynamic disk you want to convert to a basic disk.

At the DISKPART prompt, type:
select disk n

At the DISKPART prompt, type:
detail disk n

For each volume on the disk, at the DISKPART prompt, type:
select volume=n

and then type:

delete volume

At the DISKPART prompt, type:
select disk n

Specify the disk number of the disk that you want to convert to a basic disk.

At the DISKPART prompt, type:
convert basic

Post back if you have issues.
 
Actually now that I think about it you cant convert dynamic volumes back to basic. you have to delete all dynamics and then convert. Which then leaves us with the problem of saving the data. My apologies.

Give me a minute and I will come up wih something. I just have to rack the ol brain.
 
I googled it. it said I need Dskprobe.exe from the windows 2000 cd to modify the bootsector.

does anybody have that file for upload?

I wonder if I insalled windows 2000 on another partition, would it read the 80 gig dynamic disc?
 
Update. success. After a few trips to google, I found out that my windows xp sp2 (I just bought this disc on tuesday) has that Dskprobe.exe. it is only on windows 2000 and windows xp sp2

I follow these instructions

http://faq.arstechnica.com/link.php?i=1806

1) Install dskprobe.exe on the system. (This is one of the utilities in the Windows 2000 support tools on the install CD, and can be installed by simply copying the .exe file to the hard drive.)
2) Run dskprobe.exe on the system.
3) Select the Drives menu and "Physical Drive. . ."
4) Double click on the drive that you want to convert back to a basic disk. Click the "Set Active" button next to that drive.
5) From the Sectors menu, select "Read"
6) Accept the defaults (begin sector 0, read 1 sector) and click "Read"
7) In the editor, go to the "01C0" line and the third bit should be a "42". Change that to a "07". **Note, a few machines have had this on the "01D0" line instead. I don't know what that means, so I wouldn't try it unless it is on a pure test box. *****
8) From the Sectors menu, select "Write". Confirm all dialog boxes. **Note: This is the step that will hose your box if you have not followed the above instructions correctly.**
9) Exit dskprobe.exe. Reboot
10) Run chkdsk on the affected logical drive(s). If any errors are found, do a chkdsk /f to fix them. Done.

I didn't have to do step 10 either, but I will as a precaution

thanks for the help.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom