win7 ultimate unable to boot fron dynamic hard disk..plz help...

hello all,

somehow my hard disk partition became dynamic. i formatted system and insttaled windows 7 ultimate in the dynamic disk partition.

from then onwards system is not booting. only black screen with cursor on the upper left corner of the black screen.

if i am not wrong windows 7 cannot boot with dynamic disk. i will have to go to the disk management and after conversion of dynamic disk to basic disk with deleting all the volumes (data). it is possible to boot with windows 7.

but system is not booting...not opening..so i cannot go to disk management.

hrad disk is showing some partitions with system reserved.

except system reserved all the partitions are shwoing dynamic.

and in only one partition formatting option and installing OS option is coming while i booting system with OS DVD.

reinstalltion through OS DVD is possble by booting through OS DVD. but in advanced option repartition option is not coming.

the one partition in which i installed OS previously, only in that formatting option is coming.
in other partition neither formating option is coming nor extend.

You made a mistake by accepting the choice of dynamic disks when doing some partitioning operation.

Bad move. Dynamic disks are to be avoided by ordinary users and are not easy to convert back to basic.

Look here:

Convert a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk

It may be simpler to wipe all partitions in Diskpart and start over with a clean install.

Or try Partition Wizard as mentioned in that link.

actually i had moved some data in the other two dynamic partitions that i don't want to be lost.Is it possible that i could only delete and convert the partition (C drive) in which win 7 was already installed??

nastylearner said:

actually i had moved some data in the other two dynamic partitions that i don't want to be lost.Is it possible that i could only delete and convert the partition (C drive) in which win 7 was already installed??

The tutorial I linked says this:

Converting the dynamic disk back to a basic disk requires that all dynamic volumes are deleted on the disk first.

I'd take that to mean that the answer to your question is no.

But I've never tried it.

I'd just backup my data and hose it all and start over per the tutorial.

I'd have to agree. Despite many threads in which people claim "it somehow just happened on it's own", it doesn't. You'd be backing your data up anyway before attempting to convert back to a basic disc, so you might as well just clean the drive and start over.

ignatzatsonic said:

nastylearner said:

actually i had moved some data in the other two dynamic partitions that i don't want to be lost.Is it possible that i could only delete and convert the partition (C drive) in which win 7 was already installed??

The tutorial I linked says this:

Converting the dynamic disk back to a basic disk requires that all dynamic volumes are deleted on the disk first.

I'd take that to mean that the answer to your question is no.

But I've never tried it.

I'd just backup my data and hose it all and start over per the tutorial.

is there any way to back up that data? coz the OS isn't booting and hence no option for backin up the data

Pull the drive, connect it to another computer and then get to your data that way.

"The only non-destructive way to Convert Dynamic back to Basic is to use free Partition Wizard bootable CD version 4.2 which is the last version this was a free feature. Download it from here: pw422.zip ISO - Windows Live

Burn to CD using Windows Image Burner or ImgBurn, boot and follow the steps in this video: How to convert dynamic disk to basic disk with Partition Wizard?" is it worth it??? @ deaconfrost??

nastylearner said:

"The only non-destructive way to Convert Dynamic back to Basic is to use free Partition Wizard bootable CD version 4.2 which is the last version this was a free feature. Download it from here: pw422.zip ISO - Windows Live

Burn to CD using Windows Image Burner or ImgBurn, boot and follow the steps in this video: How to convert dynamic disk to basic disk with Partition Wizard?" is it worth it??? @ deaconfrost??

Is it worth it???

It's a free tool.

It's highly regarded. Issues with it are rare.

If you have no other choice, it may be the only game in town.

It's always best to back up before using a partition tool.

I think there may be a way to back up your data to another drive by using a Windows repair disc or a Windows install disc, but I don't recall the details. Member Gregrocker would know. But having only dynamic disks may make that impossible. I don't know.

But if you CAN backup your data, there is no particular reason to use Partition Wizard. You could just wipe the drive clean and start over.

I wouldn't do anything until you have exhausted all possibilities about backing up your data first.

nastylearner said:

"The only non-destructive way to Convert Dynamic back to Basic is to use free Partition Wizard bootable CD version 4.2 which is the last version this was a free feature. Download it from here: pw422.zip ISO - Windows Live

Burn to CD using Windows Image Burner or ImgBurn, boot and follow the steps in this video: How to convert dynamic disk to basic disk with Partition Wizard?" is it worth it??? @ deaconfrost??

Since you are quoting me here from another thread: Yes, this is the easiest non-destructive way to convert Dynamic to Basic.

pw422.zip ISO - Windows Live . Burn to CD with Windows Image Burner or ImgBurn.

Follow these video steps:
How to convert dynamic disk to basic disk with Partition Wizard?