converted boot disk to dynamic by accident in vista

[Pepsi90919]

so my main drive is now dynamic instead of basic...now it won't boot. i have access to a command prompt from a boot CD, also diskpart. how can i make this work again? thx

 

[lobbyone]

Dynamic or logical? Active or hidden?

 

[Pepsi90919]

dynamic, and it doesn't seem you can make anything active or hidden in this scenario...

 

[Pepsi90919]

DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

 

[RebateMonger]

Before you go any further, I'd suggest it's time to backup any valuable data on the hard drive, if you haven't already done so.

 

[Pepsi90919]

...how?
i can't boot into anything useful

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
...how?
i can't boot into anything useful

Edit:
I just remembered that you are working in Vista. I really have no idea if the "standard ways" of handling Dynamic Disks will work with Vista. Also, remember that slight changes have been made to Vista, so that most current disk management programs (Partition Magic, et al, won't work unless they have been re-designed to work with Vista. So check before assuming that a "free recovery program for converting my accidental dynamic disk back to basic disk" will work.

You should be able to add the drive as a secondary (non-system) drive on another Windows PC, scan for it, reboot, and, if necessary, "import foreign disk" into the new Windows system. Once you get the data off, you can reformat your drive and re-install Vista on your PC if necessary.

I'm NOT a dynamic disk expert. I avoid them like the plague. I just finished helping a new client recover from losing their Dynamic RAID 5 array. It cost them about $20,000, total, to recover from having two out of four drives fail semi-simultaneously.

Mainly, be REALLY careful about what you do with this disk. Microsoft has some whitepapers on dynamic disk operations. And, obviously, don't ever click on "format the disk."

 

[Pepsi90919]

thanks. i'm going to see if i can get it going as is.

 

[techs]

If all else fails you can try booting from the Vista install disk, choose Repair and see what happens. I found that when I cloned a Vista hard drive some of the boot files did not clone properly and the Vista disk repaired them automatically.
At the least, you might get a message indicating your disk is Dynamic and info on how to change it.

 

[Tegeril]

Microsoft claims the repair option can fix "approximately 80% of typical non-boot issues" so that is honestly a good suggestion to try. You may be able to recover data by booting a BartPE CD (with an external drive plugged in at boot - it's not typically good at plug and play). There are multiple file managers that may or may not be present in your build of BartPE but you could build one in. After important stuff is backed up, you could try a tool for fixing dynamic drives that isn't necessarily good for Vista.