New Hard Drive = simple volume

[Big_Al]

I just purchased a new IDE HD and installed it in my desktop to format
it. I want to take it out and put it in my USB enclosure for a larger
backup.

Normally Windows will see the new hardware and walk me through setting
it up. And it did. Since it was an IDE and all of my other drives are
SATA it came up as Drive 0. Not Drive 2 (3rd).
Anyway XP saw the drive, ask me if I wanted to convert and initialize it
(convert was a bit odd, I've never seen it, but I accepted it). I
Okay'd that and then it gave me only one option for 'volume'. I
clicked on that and it let me determine the size (full size used) and
label and NTFS format. I did and its working fine.

The question is, the SATA drives are #1) split into 2 partitions,
logical and Primary, #2) is just a primary partition. This new one
came out as a 'simple volume'. First time I've seen this, what is a
simple volume and what is it going to do when put in the USB enclosure?

I've looked at google and I see that its a valid format, and it calls it
a dynamic disk, simple volume. I still don't see much explanation of
the pros and cons of such a format. Would I be better off trying to
get this back to a primary partition and how can that be done?

 

[LVTravel]

You can do all the disk management with the drive being in the USB
enclosure. Just make sure the jumper is set right on the drive per
manufacturer's specifications.

Put the drive in the enclosure, start disk management, find the drive,
delete the partition and then recreate the partition and then format.
Nothing to it.

 

[Big_Al]

You can do all the disk management with the drive being in the USB
enclosure. Just make sure the jumper is set right on the drive per
manufacturer's specifications.

Put the drive in the enclosure, start disk management, find the drive,
delete the partition and then recreate the partition and then format.
Nothing to it.

I've been googling for the past minutes and found two microsoft articles
on this. I don't see any pros or cons other than dynamic disks are not
readable on older (pre win2k) systems. Other than that it looks like
I'm in like flint. And I do see that I can convert it back to Basic
too. Thanks for your input.