Dynamic to Basic HDD

[cornemuse]

I have a 1T 2½" hdd that mysteriously changed to dynamic. I use it as file storage for my media player attached via usb. I it connect to computer via esata (remove from case & attach via the esata. I have been doing this for 8-9 years, and its never happened before. One time I connected it (hdd) to a W 10 computer & 10 really screwed it up, ( I plugged it in and did nothing else), never did this again! I lost all data. For many years I have used XP-64 (not connected to inet) and now this happens. What would cause this? Any software (free preferably!) to convert back to basic? With XP I would lose everything. With 'disk management I can assign the drive a letter, but must do this each time I connect it to the comp.
Any ideas?

-corne-

(XP has allus worked almost perfectly)

 

[Gorstak]

Create a backup of your data, go to disk management, scroll down and click on the left handed side "button", where it says dynamic. Right click that and pick convert to basic. If the option is grayed out, it means two or more volumes were used to create a raid field, including that one. You need to backup all of them, and select them all, by ctrl + click all of them, then right click and convert to basic. You will lose your raid field by doing that.

 

[cornemuse]

1 T drive is almost full, (videos). Computer is 500 gigs and is about ½ full already, I could backup maybe 250 gigs. Hate to start over, , , ,

 

[John Naylor]

1. 1 TB does not mean it fits 1000 GBs. Back in the late 90s, one manufacturers decided to redefine GB as 1000 MB instead of the actual 1024 MB; shortly thereafter, other manufacturers gave up complaining and followed suit. So today, each GB only holds 1000 MBs of files and each TB holds only 1000 GBs of files. So your HD only fits about 930 GB of files ... with 500 Gb that makes it 54% full

2. To let windows work properly, the recommended free space on a HD is 15% ... so that means 791 GB of files.... , I wouldn't push more than 840 GB.

Your solution is adding a 2nd drive or an external. For the latter, these make it easy. If you don't care about transfer speed a $20 USB docking station and cheap green $35 1 TB drive will work fine. A USB 3 model is $5 more ...

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...&Description=blacx&ignorear=0&N=-1&isNodeId=1

 

[Athlonite]

Buy a cheap 1TB external HDD and transfer everything from the old 1TB HDD then scrap the partition and start again making it a basic partition with max size never mind doing a convert it takes to long

 

[cornemuse]

Does not matter, T or TB or bytes, about half is still about half, and almost full is still almost full however you measure it. I was using ballpark numbers. I still would lose about 2/3rds of data, or more. This is about what I would lose.
I wanted to know if there is software to convert to basic without data loss.

 

[kastriot]

https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager-guide/convert-dynamic-disk-to-basic-disk.html

 

[cornemuse]

I'll give 'em a try. (easeus)

 

[cornemuse]

Tried four (count 'em 4), (inc easeus). They all took me to actually converting, but said (basically), "See! we can do this, first you have to pay us!"
I bought a (WD Blue 1 T hdd from Frys on sale for $39, copied via esata & back. Now I have a spare 1 T drive. I will use it sooner or later.

Explain this wierdness.
I have two identical comps (except brand of memory, [8 gigs = XP 64] and different brands of cdroms). On one while the dynamic is seen in computer management, I could do nothing, delete partition, format, activate, assign drive letter etc. Other comp, no problem at all, could format, etc, etc.
I installed os & then cloned it, original & clone work in both comps, (swappable drive bay trays), go figure.
What gives??

-c-