WD SATA HDD Offline

[Pete]

Installed a clean Vista RTM
My 160Gb Western Digital SATA drive shows up in Disk Management as
"Offline - Dynamic"
The only options I have are Convert to Basic Disk, or the Properties.

Yet the drive works in Win XP. Possible Driver problem?

 

[JW]

So what happens if you "convert to basic disk" which I beleive is most
likely what it should be?

 

[SpeedKing]

I have two WD SATA 160Gb drives with Vista on a partition on drive two and
all my partitions are "basic disk"as they should show as.
Also Vista has built in"drivers"for them.
I never installed an drivers.

 

[Pete]

I would never Convert to Basic Disk - as that would wipe everything thats on
it!

It holds all my music, video's and install programs, so not a good thing to
wipe!

Vista recognises the disk, says "This device is working" But it's Offline in
the Disk Manager...

 

[Nero]

I never"converted"to basic disk, that is what they show as already in Vista.
Both drives are working as they should.
Both were partitioned and formatted in XP in the first place.
All I did was install Vista to the second drive.
Dual boot.
ALL my partitions show as Basic Disk.

 

[Ned]

Which Vista? Home Premium? I had the same problem. Found out the the home
versions of Vista do not understand dynamic disks - only the business and
Ultimate versions do.

 

[Nero]

ALL"versions"of Vista see drives as"basic drives"

 

[Pete]

Yes, they show as Basic Disk because they are all basic disks!

My problem is that my Dynamic Sata drive is Offline. And doesn't look like
any way of showing online?

I'll try posting in the private newsgroup instead, cheers

Pete

 

[JW]

Here is a link that may tell how to convert with out losing your data.
I did not go to it myself so I am not sure.

How To Convert to Basic and Dynamic Disks in Windows XP Professional
(http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;309044&sd=tech)

 

[Pete]

Thanks, But you say that it's without losing data?

The msoft link says to Backup All of your data, and to delete all the
volumes on your drive - then convert to Basic! (Ie. Delete everything!)

Pete

 

[Theo]

I guess you wouldn't lose any data if you backed it up. But
you're right that you can't convert back to Basic without
deleting all the information presently on the drive.

 

[JW]

I didn't say since as I said I did not look at the link and I said it that
it MAY tell how without losing the data.

 

[Pete]

Ah right!

Well thanks for trying.

There is no reason what-soever that Vista shouldn't support Dynamic Volumes
though...

Cheers

 

[Pete]

Ahh finally someone who can understand what i'm saying!

Thanks Ned, unfortunately that puts a hole in my works as my PC can't run
Ultimate due to lack of hardware. And I'm after the media center software
which comes with the home premium.

Ah well, looks like I need to borrow a backup drive!

Cheers

 

[Theo]

There was a post in the Win 64-bit group with a similar
problem and he discovered Norton GoBack was causing the
problem. He disabled and/or uninstalled GoBack and the
drive was fully visible. Don't know if any of this is
applicable to this thread, but thought I would throw it in
as food for thought.

 

[Ko]

Just go to drive management and assign a driveletter to the drive.
Don't let it format (cetainly not if you have data on it) after a refresh
the drive is visible and can be used.
Ko.