New
#51
Alright, I am back. Had meant to lie down for only a brief nap but sleep overtook me.
So, due to Partition Wizard Home Edition (PW) not being able to help, I searched around for an alternative and found Easeus Partition Master 10.2 (EPM).
(I decided against experimenting with an edition of PW that is 4 or 5 years out of date, but nonetheless I thank ignatz for trying to help out.)
Easeus annoyingly tries hard during installation to install all sorts of crapware also, so be on the lookout for that. Once installed, converting the disk from dynamic to basic was straightforward. In the middle, a warning came up that an error was discovered and continuing could cause data loss and prevent me from booting.
I decided to go ahead and let the operation complete. Shut down, restart. Stuck at first screen even before I get a chance to swipe my fingerprint. Shut down, restart. This time Windows loads. A couple of errors in Event Viewer.
Source: volmgr | Event ID: 46
If I understand the Microsoft Support page correctly, I shouldn't worry about that too much: https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2756313/en-us
HP Drive Encryption tells me that Windows ( C: ) drive is encrypted, so that is good.
Now here is a screenshot of Disk Manager. As you can see, the dynamic disk was successfully converted back to basic. Please compare this screenshot to the one that I linked in post #9 of this thread. Before, four partitions were "primary", now two are "primary" (namely, SYSTEM and Windows ( C: ) and two are "logical" (HP_RECOVERY and HP_TOOLS). Is that good or bad?
If bad, please provide step-by-step instructions to remedy. If good, please give detailed explanation of why I needn't worry. I must know, because presumably HP had a reason to make all four partitions primary when they built this computer.
How can I fold the "unallocated space" back into one of the partitions (probably C: since that is where it came from)?