Reverting from Dynamic to Basic on recovered system? A horror story!

[Patrick McGInley]

Hello - I have been having a devil of a time with a Windows XP/2000 system -
not a dual boot.

Earlier this week, I upgraded my chip, the bios, and feeling cocky - the IDE
drivers - ok, system down the toilet after the IDE driver installation,
repair install of XP doesn't work, neither does recovery console stopping
the faulty drivers. Full reinstall while wiping out the system folder:
system recovered. Hour later, HD "Clunk of doom" on system drive(HD1.) Lots
of attempts to get it booted one more time before it's all over. But it's
all over. Not even one token boot to let me grab one or two files. So cruel
*sob*

Ok, replaced HD1 - I keep my data and applications on seperate drives
anyways for such emergencies. I've been through this before.

After reinstallation of XP I don't see a HD2. Go to disk manager - HD2 is
marked Foreign Dynamic in Disk Manager (even though it hasn't been not
mirrored or part of any RAID set) which I can't import (I can only chose to
convert to basic at the risk of losing all my data. Data is still there - I
can use a third party utility to see it. Just can't access it from Windows
XP in any manner. After some online reading, revert system drive to Windows
2000 w SP4 + all updates. Same boat. Purchase file recovery software and
recover critical files (Hooray!)

Now I just say forget it and decide to format HD2 and forget Dynamic Disks
forever - but I can't! It won't let me revert to Basic disk on the drive,
just leaves it at dynamic disk whether I format FAT32 or NTFS - no option to
revert when I click on it's DISK1 or whatever grey heading in Disk Manager.
No physical defects on drive, but I'm going bonkers! (insert Howard Dean
scream) Bonkers I tells ya! No more KB articles, no more money thrown at it,
no more nights staying up to 2 am! NO MORE!!! I'm ready to chuck the whole
thing out a window (the irony!)

Any help would be greatly appreciated! I just can't take the horror, THE
HORROR anymore! I keep trying to go back to XP Pro every 3 months and it is
such a pain. Always corrupting the \\winnt\system32\software or some
showstopper that just cannot be fixed with the KB articles available. What
was I thinking when I put a Dynamic disk in my system?! No discernable
benefit, and anyone who uses software mirroring or software disk striping
deserves what they get. But I didn't have software RAID. argh...

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hello - I have been having a devil of a time with a Windows XP/2000 system -
not a dual boot.

Earlier this week, I upgraded my chip, the bios, and feeling cocky - the IDE
drivers - ok, system down the toilet after the IDE driver installation,
repair install of XP doesn't work, neither does recovery console stopping
the faulty drivers. Full reinstall while wiping out the system folder:
system recovered. Hour later, HD "Clunk of doom" on system drive(HD1.) Lots
of attempts to get it booted one more time before it's all over. But it's
all over. Not even one token boot to let me grab one or two files. So cruel
*sob*

Ok, replaced HD1 - I keep my data and applications on seperate drives
anyways for such emergencies. I've been through this before.

After reinstallation of XP I don't see a HD2. Go to disk manager - HD2 is
marked Foreign Dynamic in Disk Manager (even though it hasn't been not
mirrored or part of any RAID set) which I can't import (I can only chose to
convert to basic at the risk of losing all my data. Data is still there - I
can use a third party utility to see it. Just can't access it from Windows
XP in any manner. After some online reading, revert system drive to Windows
2000 w SP4 + all updates. Same boat. Purchase file recovery software and
recover critical files (Hooray!)

Now I just say forget it and decide to format HD2 and forget Dynamic Disks
forever - but I can't! It won't let me revert to Basic disk on the drive,
just leaves it at dynamic disk whether I format FAT32 or NTFS - no option to
revert when I click on it's DISK1 or whatever grey heading in Disk Manager.
No physical defects on drive, but I'm going bonkers! (insert Howard Dean
scream) Bonkers I tells ya! No more KB articles, no more money thrown at it,
no more nights staying up to 2 am! NO MORE!!! I'm ready to chuck the whole
thing out a window (the irony!)

Any help would be greatly appreciated! I just can't take the horror, THE
HORROR anymore! I keep trying to go back to XP Pro every 3 months and it is
such a pain. Always corrupting the \\winnt\system32\software or some
showstopper that just cannot be fixed with the KB articles available. What
was I thinking when I put a Dynamic disk in my system?! No discernable
benefit, and anyone who uses software mirroring or software disk striping
deserves what they get. But I didn't have software RAID. argh...

The official line is: You can't go back to basic disks:
http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/Q217/2/26.ASP&NoWebContent=1

If you don't care about your data, boot the machine with
a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com, then delete
all partitions with delpart.exe from
http://www.russelltexas.com/delpart.htm.

If you want to access your data, and if haven't made use of
the special features that pertain to dynamic disks then you
***may*** be able to go back to a basic disk with this quick
and dirty method:

1. Get a free copy of ptedit.exe from
ftp://ftp.powerquest.com/pub/utilities/.
2. Boot your PC with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com.
3. Run ptedit.exe and make a note of the disk type.
It is reported in the left-most column.
4. Replace this number by the number that is appropriate
for your system. ptedit.exe has a button that pops up
the various type numbers.

Reboot your system and check if all is well.

This method is completely reversible. If you punch in the
wrong number, just go through steps 2. and 3. again and
change the number back to what it was before.

Note that I was successful with this method in my test
setup but I can give no assurance as to what it will do in
your case.

 

[Patrick McGInley]

Thanks - the disk that I'm trying to change to Basic is not a system
partition/boot disk - if I get a version of Partition Magic compatible with
NTFS would I be able to do this also? Just curious, since your link is to
powerquest. Thanks for your rapid reply to a frazzled guy.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

ptedit is freely downloadable. It is probably included with PQMagic.