First use of Macrium Reflect: Questions

[whs]

When you got rid of the dynamics, we'll have to make one of the primary partitions a logical partition. The best candidate for that is the C partition.

And remember - before you start the dynamic conversion, you have to delete that new 2GB partition. Make sure you delete both Volume and Partition so that you only have 2GB of unallocated space.

 

[malvoglio]

Took a little longer than 30 minutes, sorry about that.

I deleted the I: volume (there was no option to delete a partition also) and now I have 2 GB unallocated space.

As I feared, when I want to "convert dynamic disk to basic disk" in PW, a message box pops up, "This function is not supported by Mini Tool Partition Wizard Home Edition."

The pw422.zip from ignatz' link is four years old and contains pwhe422.iso, not an .exe file.

Now what can I try next?

 

[whs]

Hmm, my PW supports it. But then use the PW 422. The .iso you have to burn to a CD and boot from CD.

 

[malvoglio]

And something else has happened. Going into HP Security Client to find out about decrypting, a red warning has appeared in "Drive Security". I get a notice that says my data are at risk and I should encrypt my drive.

But in the "Connected box" it also tells me that Drive Encryption has not found drives compatible with Drive Encryption. It says "Dynamic and replaceable media cannot be encrypted".

In the "Disconnected" box below, it shows Windows ( C: ) as encrypted but ...

I dread what will happen when I reboot...

 

[malvoglio]

What version of PW Home Edition are you using? Perhaps I can retrieve it from Filehippo.

 

[whs]

Mine is the Pro version. I bought the license a long time ago. I forgot that. At 77 years that happens, sorry.

 

[malvoglio]

Should we close this thread now? It's unfortunate how it turned out but these things happen.

If the Restore from Windows Image Backup works, I should soon be able to get back up to speed.

Thanks for all your assistance, I appreciate it.

 

[whs]

Why close. Try the PW422. What can you lose. If I had known that there were 4 primaries, that would have went differently.

 

[malvoglio]

Well I did post a link to my configuration in post #9 of this thread but it's easy to miss something.

I don't really expect rebooting with a pw422 iso to work but I will try it anyway.

Given this uncertainty I can't say when I'll be able to come back and report what will have happened. Please don't feel obligated to stay up on my behalf.

 

[whs]

Yes you are right. I had the wife look thru all the postings to see where I went wrong. She discovered the link in #9. I am 50% blind and cannot tell blue from black.

I will check on you tomorrow.

 

[malvoglio]

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)?

 

[whs]

Great, that looks good. I would leave it that way. I think it is a bad practice of the OEMs to make all partitions primaries. The only one that needs to be primary is the one that contains the bootmgr - the system partition in your case. You can even make the C partition logical, but in your case that is no more required.

Since you are left with only 2 primaries, you could now make a little partition in the 2GBs. But if you had enough of the experimenting and want to get it back into C, just right click on C (in disk management) and 'Extend'.

I am really sorry I was not sufficiently alert yesterday night and drove you thru all those exercises. But at the end you may have learned a few things which can be helpful in the future.

 

[malvoglio]

I am really sorry I was not sufficiently alert yesterday night and drove you thru all those exercises.

Don't sweat it. "Wo Menschen arbeiten, passieren Fehler."

It would be nice to know a bit more about the pros and cons of having four primary partitions vs. fewer. And why HP chose to set four partitions as primary.

But if you had enough of the experimenting

Right now I have some catching up with work to do, so maybe at a later date.

Regarding your visual impairment, I don't know which browser you use. But I checked in Mozilla Add-ons (for Firefox) and strangely, there is no add-on that will automatically highlight links on a web page.

However, I found: Firefox Accessibility Features

According to them:

Follow this path to access the fonts and colors control panels in Firefox.
Tools > Options > Content > Fonts & Colors.
There you will be able to select the fonts that you would like to use, the font sizes, and the colors for text, background, etc.
For finer font family and size customizations including setting a minimum font size, click on the Advanced tab.
If you would like for your settings to persist through all web pages and Firefox sessions, be sure to uncheck the option where in the advanced section it says, "Allow page's to use their own fonts, instead of my selections above".
The same goes for colors as well. Uncheck, "Allow pages to use their own colors, instead of my selections above".

​

So perhaps that would work as a quick fix for you.

 

[whs]

There is absolutely no advantage to have more than 1 primary partition - for the bootmgr. That is for the MBR to have a proper pointer for booting. When I have a system partition, I even make C: a logical partition. But most times I copy the bootmgr to C and get rid of the system partition.

All OEMs (not only HP) make 4 primaries and that is absolutely stupid. It must have something to do with their production process.

Regarding my eyes - I have Macula degeneration at a pretty advanced stage. My left eye is down to 20% and my right eye is a bit better. I have a hard time identifying colors. And I need a lot of contrast.

On the PC, I set the DPI to 150% which works well on my 22" monitor. I also use the Magnifier quite frequently. The browsers don't really matter too much. It is more a problem on the websites. Some work well, others are more difficult. It depends on the available skins. Like here I use Pastel wide. The high contrast skins of Windows also work very well, but they have other disadvantages - e.g. they are incompatible with Office. So it's a daily fight, but I manage somehow.

Thanks for your FF suggestion. I will look into that.

 

[malvoglio]

Something else has come up.

All system restore points are gone. Not a big deal, but the relevant window is showing something odd.

When you have time after the holidays, could you give me your opinion on this? I haven't restarted the computer since it first started after successfully converting the partitions from primary to basic, will leave it running for now.

 

[whs]

System restore is off. Just set it on again.

I have no idea what the two folders on the bottom are. But I have one of those too.

 

[malvoglio]

Thank you, good to know.

 

[whs]

I mucked around a bit more with this strange folder. There is no path to that folder in the system. I really wonder what that folder is supposed to be.

 

[malvoglio]

Chances are that it's some remnant from the "convert dynamic->basic" operation. I usually worry that anything weird-looking is a harbinger of worse things to come, but since your system is running o.k. while showing a similar condition I'm deciding to check it off my list of things to worry about