EMERGENCY: NEED TO RECOVER DYNAMIC DISK(s)

[Goosemaster]

My computer has been giving me a LOT of trouble today due to various reason, and this last one is bad.

My only physical drive on the machine in question is a 120GB partitioned in a dynamic drive, with volumes of 10GB(system) and 111GB(storage)

I accidentally deleted it, but the only HELPful thing I can find on recovering it is THIS MICROSOFT ARTICLE.

Unfortunately, I have Two volumes on there, so this might not work.

Right now I am using my version of "getdataback for NTFS" and it seems to be finding files but it will take 2 hours to see. Even so, a simple MBR recovery solution would be great.

Thanks

 

[KarenMarie]

Do you have another hard drive?
If so, can you make it master and slave this one... copy your files to the new master and reformat this one?

Just a thought.

 

[Legendary]

I think if you pop in a Windows XP CD and boot to recovery console it can remake the MBR for you so it will boot into Windows.
Of course, I don't entirely understand what you did, but if it's the MBR you need back I think that's a possibility.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: Legendary
I think if you pop in a Windows XP CD and boot to recovery console it can remake the MBR for you so it will boot into Windows.
Of course, I don't entirely understand what you did, but if it's the MBR you need back I think that's a possibility.

I tried that. It cannot find the os.

it gives me a C: prompt instead of the usual procedure. if i type Anything in it ouputs an "invalid directory " error.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
Do you have another hard drive?
If so, can you make it master and slave this one... copy your files to the new master and reformat this one?

Just a thought.

That is exactly what I am doing right now. Windows cannot see the dynamic volumes, and worst, cannot even see that it is a dynamic DRIVE. It thinks it is a basic disk, so I cannot import the volumes.

 

[IcemanJer]

what's the difference between a basic and dynamic disk anyways?

 

[Windogg]

Dynamic disk is a stupid MS scheme that writes a unique boot signature to each disk. back in NT4 you could do software RAID but only one disk has the boot record. Once that disk was lost you had to go through a complicated plan to "break the mirror" before you could get at your data.

MS started with dynamic disk with W2K. Unless you use MS software RAID there is zero benefit to dynamic disk. MS hypes all sorts FUD about how dynamic disk is supposed to improve performance etc. Not true. Dynamic disk also makes the drive unrecognizeable from other OSes that do not support the feature. Not a good thing you need to recover data. Always stick with basic disk.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: Windogg
Dynamic disk is a stupid MS scheme that writes a unique boot signature to each disk. back in NT4 you could do software RAID but only one disk has the boot record. Once that disk was lost you had to go through a complicated plan to "break the mirror" before you could get at your data.

MS started with dynamic disk with W2K. Unless you use MS software RAID there is zero benefit to dynamic disk. MS hypes all sorts FUD about how dynamic disk is supposed to improve performance etc. Not true. Dynamic disk also makes the drive unrecognizeable from other OSes that do not support the feature. Not a good thing you need to recover data. Always stick with basic disk.

yeah. When I first set it up i was planning on having a lot of partitions so that is why I went with it. In the end i ended up having only two, and now this

 

[simms]

this is why i stick with fat32. good luck.

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: Windogg
Dynamic disk is a stupid MS scheme that writes a unique boot signature to each disk. back in NT4 you could do software RAID but only one disk has the boot record. Once that disk was lost you had to go through a complicated plan to "break the mirror" before you could get at your data.

MS started with dynamic disk with W2K. Unless you use MS software RAID there is zero benefit to dynamic disk. MS hypes all sorts FUD about how dynamic disk is supposed to improve performance etc. Not true. Dynamic disk also makes the drive unrecognizeable from other OSes that do not support the feature. Not a good thing you need to recover data. Always stick with basic disk.

Dynamic disks do have their use, like the ability to quickly create/repair sofware RAID arrays without powering down the system (very usefull on servers with hot-swappable drive bays). I dont know that I've ever seen documentation indicating that A Dynamic software array is faster than other software array solutions (and I would also question it if I saw it).

Whatever it is that you want to accomplish however I highly reccomend not making your boot/system disk dynamic, that's just asking for trouble to happen.

this is why i stick with fat32. good luck.

His problem has nothing to do with the file system he is running. Dynamic/Basic disk is something that happens at a lower level. My guess is that your posting this question means you dont really know what they are talking about...

 

[Goosemaster]

OMG...GETDATABACK IS WORKING.....16% of my music recovered

I honestly didn;t think it would read dynamic disk volumes....

Thanks for the ehlp people. I just had to be patient and use my tools.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Windogg
Dynamic disk is a stupid MS scheme that writes a unique boot signature to each disk. back in NT4 you could do software RAID but only one disk has the boot record. Once that disk was lost you had to go through a complicated plan to "break the mirror" before you could get at your data.

MS started with dynamic disk with W2K. Unless you use MS software RAID there is zero benefit to dynamic disk. MS hypes all sorts FUD about how dynamic disk is supposed to improve performance etc. Not true. Dynamic disk also makes the drive unrecognizeable from other OSes that do not support the feature. Not a good thing you need to recover data. Always stick with basic disk.

rofl. Speaking of FUD, you're the one spreading it. You also don't know what you're talking about.

1. MS actually recommends basic disks whenever possible. See KB329707 and KB816307.

2. Both dynamic and basic disks use a unique signature. It's located at octets 6-12 on line 01B0 of sector 0. There is no difference between the signatures on dynamic and basic disks. Also, on dynamic disks the LDM database is identical on each drive. If your partition information is lost on one disk you can copy the database from another. If you lose your partition table on a basic disk you have to rebuild it by hand after you've located the boot sector for each partition.

3. Under NT4 you did not have to go through any complicated plan to break the mirror to get your data back. If it was your system drive you just added an entry to boot.ini and you were done. If it's a data drive, yes you "break the mirror" (unless of course there is some reason you want access to your corrupted copy :roll: ). The "complicated plan" simply consisted of right clicking on the drive in disk management.

Stop making crap up.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: simms
this is why i stick with fat32. good luck.

That is so dumb I'm not even going to flame you over it. I don't think you would understand.

 

[NogginBoink]

Actually, smilin, MS recommends against dynamic disks where possible. From the KB329707 that you referenced: "Before you convert basic disks to dynamic disks, determine whether you require features that only dynamic disks provide. If you do not need spanned volumes, striped volumes, mirrored volumes, or RAID-5 sets, it is best to use basic disks."

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: NogginBoink
Actually, smilin, MS recommends against dynamic disks where possible. From the KB329707 that you referenced: "Before you convert basic disks to dynamic disks, determine whether you require features that only dynamic disks provide. If you do not need spanned volumes, striped volumes, mirrored volumes, or RAID-5 sets, it is best to use basic disks."

That's what he said.