How did this happen?

[imported_heyguy]

I've been swapping hardware between two computers trying to get things working the way I wanted. This hardware did not include the hard drives. I never installed anything or ran any configuration programs that dealt with them, yet one of them (the one where I keep all my data) is now recognized as a dynamic disk and I cannot access it. All other hard drives are fine. I'm stumped as I didn't even know what a dynamic disk was until this happened. Is there any hope? This is a 320gb Seagate 7200.10 if that helps. Thank you all.

 

[tyler811]

Text

 

[imported_heyguy]

That tells me that if I convert it back, I will lose my data, which I don't want to do. I might have to though, seeing how I haven't been able to find anyone on the web with similar difficulties.

Soo maybe I can format it and recover the data with some software. Any recommendations in the free-$20 range?

 

[ScrapSilicon]

local access to the dynamic disk is limited to Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000

Originally posted by: heyguy
That tells me that if I convert it back, I will lose my data, which I don't want to do. I might have to though, seeing how I haven't been able to find anyone on the web with similar difficulties.

Soo maybe I can format it and recover the data with some software. Any recommendations in the free-$20 range?

no ...

The disk must not have any volumes nor contain any data before you can change it back to a basic disk. If you want to keep your data, back it up or move it to another volume before you convert the disk to a basic disk.

this might help

 

[Lord Evermore]

If you convert the drive you will lose everything. If you format it you may make it even less recoverable. Run the recovery software before you do anything else, it won't care about it being a basic or dynamic disk because it's just scanning the drive bit by bit looking for file structures.

What hardware did you swap? Have you tried reading this drive in one of the other machines? It's possible it got corrupted somehow so that Windows now thinks it's a dynamic disk, but that's a bit of a stretch.

You could try contacting Microsoft, or using their newsgroups. Not sure if they'll answer a question for the e-mail support if you have an OEM version, since you have to provide your product ID to even submit an email, but you do get 2 free support requests that way.

 

[corkyg]

If the data is important, then backup or copy that data to another drive - possibly an external. Once that is done you can then convert the Dynamic back to Basic.

Dynamics were created originally for W2K. There are reasons for them.

DD

 

[imported_heyguy]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
If you convert the drive you will lose everything. If you format it you may make it even less recoverable. Run the recovery software before you do anything else, it won't care about it being a basic or dynamic disk because it's just scanning the drive bit by bit looking for file structures.

What hardware did you swap? Have you tried reading this drive in one of the other machines? It's possible it got corrupted somehow so that Windows now thinks it's a dynamic disk, but that's a bit of a stretch.

You could try contacting Microsoft, or using their newsgroups. Not sure if they'll answer a question for the e-mail support if you have an OEM version, since you have to provide your product ID to even submit an email, but you do get 2 free support requests that way.

Thank you very much. I swapped the RAM and CPU back and forth many times between two computers trying to figure out what my cooling problem was and one set of memory wasn't working with the computer I wanted it to. I ended up having to remove everything on the mobo that had the messed up hard drive and taking it out of the case so I could install the CPU heatsink properly. The hard drive shows up the same way on both computers now (dynamic). I ran a "free" scan with a couple of programs on the net, and all my stuff appears to still be there, but I have to pay to recover. I'll find something. The problem is almost as good as solved. Thanks.