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Convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk

Yes, I did the “big” mistake and I try to add a 5-th partition to my HDD (I was thinking that there are only 3: C, D and System Bakup) and I click Yes to all the messages without reading… and I end up with a dynamic hard drive…

Initially I had a dual boot Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2.

I did not want to buy any third party software, so I decided to do a backup and erase everything. The problem I had was that in order to convert the unique hard drive I had from a dynamic one to a basic disk, you have to delete all the volumes…. but the boot volume cannot be erased !

Here is the workaround I found:

1. Backup your disks (C and D)

2. Create a Windows boot DVD

3. Reboot from the boot DVD

4. Go to the command prompt and erase all the volumes:

Diskpart

Select disk 0

Clean

5. Reboot the computer with the Windows 7 DVD and see that there is only one volume!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 25, 2010
    oh, it's so simple but very useful....