dynamic disc and system reserve

[colinearpsycho]

i have two questions that for a beginner in windows os are not simple to answer, nor test in terms of valued time (by that i mean not wasting it)...

i'm wondering why i can't poerform two actions:

after converting my internal drive to a dynamic disk, why can't it boot another os? i was interested in spanning volumes, and obviously in terms of optimized virtual raid the real issue is putting the windows partition on a raid volume, but simply put why can't i install a second operating system after i've converted a disc to a dynamic disc. is there anyway to forego that trouble? in short, i want to install linux side by side with windows on seperated partitions, striped mirrored or otherwise but not having a raid controller, vraid is the only hope i have and windows dynamic disc is telling me that i can't boot other os's except the currently booted system if i convert the discs. in fact after converting the drive initially, i couldn't even reformat and reinstall windows with the 7 disc. but in my experience, it's saying windows will no longer perform these functions but other discs and environments may not even recognize the windows os change so that the possibilities aren't closed to anything but the windows operating system.

secondly, if i installed something like lilo or grub, without linux let's say, could i delete the system reserved partition? i believe i've deleted it in the passed and not had boot issues or other noticeable trouble with windows, but i'm unsure what i had or would be doing in terms of long term os stability. i saved the reserved partition of a former install by assigned it a drive letter, opening it and saving the contents for learning purposes. does anyone have any suggestions on how i could best approach that?

TIA, i'm in america btw.

 

[gregrocker]

I would not use Dynamic Disk so others may have more answers, but here's how to undo it: Convert a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk - Windows 7 Forums