I am facing a fairly complex problem: my PC was
configured with a SATA RAID-0 configuration (two 60-GB
HDs) and two PATA HDs. These two ATA drives were
converted to dynamic, and they are used to keep a handy
backup. I had to reinstall WinXP (Pro) from scratch
because of a hardware problem (changed the two SATA disks
to newer ones), but I had no way to convert the dynamic
disks to basic prior to reinstall Windows. Now I cannot
access the drives. The problem occurs at boot time: it
seems to me that the PC cannot initialize when the
dynamic disks are present - I get a boot failure. If I
take them out, the system works fine. I need to get my
data back from the dynamic disks, but it seems not
feasible. Any thoughts? Maybe if I get an external (USB
or FireWire) enclosure? Please help!

First, where is the computer looking to boot from? Make sure you have
the new SATA drives set as first in the boot sequence. Removing the old
SATA drives will cause the BIOS to set the IDE drives as first. Second,
you can try an external enclosure and it will work. You will simply
need to import the foreign disk in Disk Managment (right click on My
Computer, click Manage, click Disk Managemt). Right click on the drive
and import it. This is the same thing you will do if you get Windows to
boot with the IDE drives connected

----
Nathan McNulty


TomatoSmasher wrote:
> I am facing a fairly complex problem: my PC was
> configured with a SATA RAID-0 configuration (two 60-GB
> HDs) and two PATA HDs. These two ATA drives were
> converted to dynamic, and they are used to keep a handy
> backup. I had to reinstall WinXP (Pro) from scratch
> because of a hardware problem (changed the two SATA disks
> to newer ones), but I had no way to convert the dynamic
> disks to basic prior to reinstall Windows. Now I cannot
> access the drives. The problem occurs at boot time: it
> seems to me that the PC cannot initialize when the
> dynamic disks are present - I get a boot failure. If I
> take them out, the system works fine. I need to get my
> data back from the dynamic disks, but it seems not
> feasible. Any thoughts? Maybe if I get an external (USB
> or FireWire) enclosure? Please help!