Windows 7 : Configuring Disks and Drives (part 2) - Converting a Basic Disk to a Dynamic Disk

2. Installing and Initializing New Disks

With the dramatic increase in the quality and capacity of external disk drives, there aren’t many good reasons to bother going inside your computer to install an internal disk anymore.

With that said, if you want to install a disk inside your computer. When you are finished installing the disk inside your computer and you turn your computer on, you need to log on and start Disk Management. If the new disks have already been initialized with disk signatures by the manufacturer, they should be brought online automatically if you select Rescan Disks from the Action menu. If you are working with new disks that have not been initialized with disk signatures by the manufacturer, Disk Management will display the Initialize Disk dialog box as soon it detects the new disk.

In this case, you can initialize the disk by completing these steps:

1. In the Select Disks list, the disk or disks you added can be selected for initialization automatically. Select the disk or disks you want to initialize. Click Next.

2. By default, the disk partition style is set to MBR (Master Boot Record) if the total disk size is less than 2 TB. If you want to use the GPT (GUID Partition Table) style, select the related option.

3. Click OK. The disk or disks are initialized with the basic disk type. If you want to convert the new disk or other disks from the basic disk type to the dynamic disk type, you’ll need to do this manually, as discussed in the next section.

3. Converting a Basic Disk to a Dynamic Disk

Windows 7 allows you to convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk. Moving from a basic disk to a dynamic disk is considered an upgrade. When you upgrade to a dynamic disk, partitions become volumes of the appropriate type.

To upgrade successfully to a dynamic disk, keep the following caveats in mind:

• There must be at least 1 MB of free space at the end of the disk. Disk Management reserves this free space automatically, but other disk management tools might not.

• Devices with removable media or removable storage can’t be converted. In most cases, these devices can be configured only as basic drives with primary partitions.

• Disks with the system, boot, or both partitions can’t be converted if they are part of a spanned or striped volume. You’ll need to stop the spanning or striping of system or boot partitions before you perform the conversion.

• Dynamic disks are not supported on portable computers.

You can convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk by completing the following steps:

1. In Disk Management, right-click the disk designator for the basic disk that you want to convert in the Graphical view and then select Convert to Dynamic Disk.

2. In the Convert to Dynamic Disk dialog box, the disk you selected is listed, as shown in Figure 4.

3. If the disk you are converting has no formatted volumes, the disk is automatically selected for conversion and clicking OK converts the disk. You do not need to follow the remaining steps.

4. If the disk you are converting has formatted volumes, you may need to select the disk and then click OK. Continue with the remaining steps to complete the conversion.

5. As shown in Figure 5, the Disks to Convert dialog box shows the disk you’re converting so that you can confirm the conversion. The value in the Will Convert column should be Yes as long as the disk meets the conversion criteria.

6. Click the disk and then click Details to see the volumes on the selected disk. When you are ready to continue, click OK to close the Convert Details dialog box.

7. Click Convert. Disk Management warns you that once you convert the disk, you won’t be able to boot other operating systems from volumes on the selected disk. Click Yes to continue.

8. If disks are mounted and active, Disk Management warns you that it needs to dismount the disk to convert its volumes. Click Yes to continue.

9. If a selected drive contains the boot partition, the system partition, or a partition in use, Disk Management will need to restart the computer and you will see another prompt.

Figure 4. Converting the disk

Figure 5. Checking the disk’s associated volumes

4. Converting a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk

Downgrading to the basic disk type from the dynamic disk type is not so easy. Before you convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk, you must delete all the volumes on the disk. This results in the loss of all data in those volumes if you do not back up or move the data to another disk beforehand.

You can convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk by completing the following steps:

1. In Windows Explorer, copy or move all data on all the disk’s volumes to another disk. Confirm that all data has been copied or moved before continuing.

2. In Disk Management, delete all volumes on the dynamic disk by right-clicking and selecting Delete Volume. Because this destroys all the data on the volumes, Disk Management displays a warning prompt (see Figure 6). If you are sure you want to delete the volume, click Yes.

3. When you delete the last volume, Windows changes the dynamic disk to a basic disk, and you can then partition and format the disk for use.

Figure 6. Confirming that you want to delete the volume