Converted my HDD to dynamic; how do I change it back?

[kbronski]

So, I'll give this as plainly as I can.


I had some partitions, as follows.

||SYSTEM RESERVED||WINDOWS 7||SHARED DATA||WINDOWS 8||

Next, I shrank the Windows 8 volume and made a new volume. My plan was going to be to clone the Windows 8 volume to the new volume, so I could add more storage space to my shared data partition. The problem is this: creating the extra volume converted my whole HDD to dynamic. That said, my Windows 8 boot was lost immediately. So, I just deleted the Windows 8 partition and the new one and merged all that extra space to my data partition. Now, will this mess with my Windows 7 boot at all? I'm scared to restart my computer.


All of my partitions (including my Windows 7 one) are just simple volumes now.
I'm feel stupid.

 

[windude99]

So, I'll give this as plainly as I can.


I had some partitions, as follows.

||SYSTEM RESERVED||WINDOWS 7||SHARED DATA||WINDOWS 8||

Next, I shrank the Windows 8 volume and made a new volume. My plan was going to be to clone the Windows 8 volume to the new volume, so I could add more storage space to my shared data partition. The problem is this: creating the extra volume converted my whole HDD to dynamic. That said, my Windows 8 boot was lost immediately. So, I just deleted the Windows 8 partition and the new one and merged all that extra space to my data partition. Now, will this mess with my Windows 7 boot at all? I'm scared to restart my computer.

I'm feel stupid.

Insert your Windows 7 installation cd and boot off of it. Next, click on repair your computer and then click on startup repair. It should fix the issues. If not, insert your Windows 8 installation cd/usb and run startup repair off of that.

 

[kbronski]

Blargh. Okay. Or I can just reformat :3 OR DO A SYSTEM RESTORE?

If I reformat, will I be able to use my Windows 7 key on the bottom of my laptop again? This would my second time reformatting.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Post a screen shot of Windows Disk Management so we can see what is going on.

Generally---if you have a valid product key, you can reinstall as much as you have to--if you have not changed motherboards.

 

[kbronski]

Actually, the issue is more updated over here: Drive Cloning -- One Partition To Another - Windows 8 Forums

 

[karlsnooks]

kbronski,
Yes. You will be able to use your Product Key again.
SIW, under Software | Licenses will shou you both your product id and your product key. They are different animals.

Link to SIW in my signature.

 

[gregrocker]

You must have ignored the warning message that you were converting to Dynamic disk which is meant for spanning large partitions across HD's.

To convert it back to Basic non-destructively use free Partition Wizard bootable CD, however this feature is only free in version 4.2 and prior. You can download the file here and burn to CD using Windows Image Burner or ImgBurn: pw422.zip ISO - Windows Live

Boot the CD, click on Disk # to highlight it, then from Disk tab select Convert to Basic Disk.

In order to do this you'll first need to delete the partition which caused the conversion.

Then post back a screenshot of your maximized Disk Mgmt drive map so we can advise you the best way to convert a partition to Logical so that as many Logical sub-partitions can be added as needed. Often this is done with C if you have the 100mb System Reserved partition booting Win7..

 

[kbronski]

I'm just gonna start over from scratch after next week (next week is finals and then it's back home for summer).
That way I can give my HDD a few good wipes anyway. Thanks for the help, though. I'll bookmark these for the future.