Dynamic vs. Basic Disk

[Kayda]

Hi:

I recently took an old Maxtor 80GB drive and put it in a USB drive
case, and hooked it up to a new computer. When I reboot, the computer
doesn't recognize it until I go to Disk Management and right click on
it and choose "reactivate disk". Then I can explore the disk.

If I choose "Convert to Basic Disk", will it recognize the disk on
bootup? What are the implications of doing this? (obviously I will need
to back up my files first).

Thanks,
Kayda

 

[Rich Barry]

Kayda, if you revert to Basic Disk you would have to delete all your
volumes before repartitioning losing all your data.
Take a look here on the procedure
http://channels.lockergnome.com/win..._converting_from_dynamic_to_basic_disks.phtml

 

[S.Sengupta]

Do some reading:-
How To Use Disk Management to Configure Dynamic Disks in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308424

Basic Storage Versus Dynamic Storage in Windows XP
http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsXP/howto-20.html

regards,
S.Sengupta[MS-MVP]