XP Pro - Dynamic / Basic Disks

[Deadlierchair]

Okay, I googled around a little and read through the forum FAQ and found out a little about dynamic versus basic disks in XP Pro, but I haven't come to a good conclusion. After a recent reinstall of windows one of my SATA storage drives turned itself into a dynamic disk. I have XP on a seperate 40 gig drive. Now I'm wondering, should I be worried about this? I just want simple storage on the drive, no spanning or software RAID or anything like that. What should I do?

[E4g1e]

When you reinstall Windows XP, it is normal for any hard drive(s) other than your main boot Windows XP drive to be converted into "dynamic" disks. In this case, the dynamic disk is a secondary disk, used for data storage only.

[Deadlierchair]

So it's nothing to worry about? I haven't had any problems other than this S.M.A.R.T. utility thing won't let me read info from the dynamic drive..

[Ice Czar]

When you reinstall Windows XP, it is normal for any hard drive(s) other than your main boot Windows XP drive to be converted into "dynamic" disks. In this case, the dynamic disk is a secondary disk, used for data storage only.


???????WHAT??????

disks dont "upgrade" by themselves
the screen that upgrades them is far to easy to click yes to,
but you still need to do that

as to the question, well reverting a dynamic will loose you all the data
if done in Windows, there are a few 3rd party aps that will do it and retain the data
but they aint freeware

Id not recommend Dynamic Disks, unless your running software RAID
if you can transfer the data off and revert it
but its not "harmful" to have a dyanmic disk, just a different and more complex learning curve (and repair \ recovery proceedures)

[Deadlierchair]

Okay, I think I'm gonna move the data off that drive and format it back to good old NTFS :)

Best to avoid problems, I don't want to do anything that might risk my entire music archive.

[Ice Czar]

well you should have that backed up to hard media
there really is no substitute ;)

but yes there can be additional "pitfalls" to dynamic disks
basically because it different than what you already know
when you examine the single greatest cause of data loss
its not power, or hardware failure

its pilot error ;) > Example (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=764841&highlight=Probe) (Im still trying to get that fixed)

the biggest single drawback from my point of view is, you cant image dyanmic disks with any affordable clone utility, and many rescue and recovery aps also dont work

[Deadlierchair]

Oh yeah, all of my music is backed up on the CDs it came from. So, it wouldn't be a huge loss, except for sooo much time ripping all of them to VBR mp3s.

I don't want to be stuck not being able to use recovery utilities if that should happen, dynamic just doesn't sound right for me.

[Ice Czar]

well there are several that will do dynamic disks
but yeh, especially when your in Disk Management
be careful what you click
that damn popup wizard should really be killed
its far to easy to "trick" users into "upgrading" :rolleyes:

[Elmo187]

that damn popup wizard should really be killed
its far to easy to "trick" users into "upgrading" :rolleyes:

When does this wizard appear? Now that you've mentioned it, I can't recall seeing it and now I'm curious.

[Ice Czar]

it can popup whan you add a new disk

Best Practices for Dyanmic Disks on Windows 2000-Based Computers (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329707)

The Write Signature and Upgrade Disk Wizard
When you start the Disk Management snap-in, it will enumerate all disks in the system to see if any disks have changed or if any new disks were attached to the system. If Disk Management finds any disks that are unknown, that are not initialized, or that do not have a disk signature in the MBR, Disk Management starts the Write Signature and Upgrade Disk Wizard.

The wizard first prompts you to select which disks that you want to write a disk signature to; by default, no disks are selected. To select the disks, click the check boxes next to the disk numbers.

The wizard then prompts you to select which disks that you want to upgrade to dynamic disks. Each disk that you selected on the first page is automatically selected here. If you continue without clearing the disk check boxes, LDM writes a disk signature and upgrades all the disks that you selected to dynamic disks automatically.

NOTE: This wizard was changed in Windows XP and later. It no longer automatically selects the disks to be upgraded to dynamic.

If the MBR of a dynamic disk is zeroed out (for example, because of a hardware problem), when you start Disk Management, the Write Signature and Upgrade Disk Wizard starts. If you permit the disk to be reconverted to dynamic, the original LDM database is overwritten by the newly initialized LDM database. Disk Management shows that disk as healthy and only shows unallocated free space. If you have another healthy dynamic disk in the system at the time of conversion, its LDM database is then replicated to the newly converted dynamic disk and a "missing" disk (representing the original dynamic disk) is also shown in Disk Management.

Because of this, it is best that you disable the Write Signature and Upgrade Disk Wizard in Windows 2000, or that you caution users about the default behavior of the wizard, and be careful not to accidentally reconvert a disk that was previously dynamic.

To manually disable the wizard, follow these steps.
More >

[E4g1e]

Mea culpa. (I stand corrected.)

[Ice Czar]

you werent that far off ( as they will default to dynamic if initialized in W2K)
and helped to illustrate a dangerous pitfall
(one I fell for when first starting :p )

sometimes a mistake is more valuable than the actual answer
like in this case ;)