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HDD gone dynamic, can't format or change back to basic
(Win7 Ultimate x32, SP1)
I have an old 40GB drive split into 3 partitions (none are boot). After a recent crash the drive had a mechanical failure- the actuator was sticking or something- but after a few taps it started again and seems to be ok. No loss of data and fully accessible but windows keeps telling me it has a "problem" and I need to back it up. Backups consistently fail. DM is now showing it as a Dynamic drive with one of the partitions split into multiple simple volumes.
I did a C&P of all the files to an external drive and deleted everything on the partition then tried to format, but that failed because "the partition is in use". Most options in DM are unavailable. Tried to use Partition Wizard to convert from Dynamic to basic but that failed as well.
I hate to toss 40 gigs of storage, any ideas on how to get it back to normal operations?