80g ibm deskstar + win2k pro prob

[zaz]

new to these forums so first off 'hi' to you all

after having graphics glitches, i decided to reinstall win2k pro on my system. (forced to use as i play online games and need to share cable connection)

i used fdisk to format the C: partition ready for a fresh install, and after a while, i had my system up and running again.

i then used partition magic 8 to merge the partitions in the drive to one 30gig partition, and again all went well.

The problem came when i reconnected my slave 80g drive to the system, and tried to access it.

win2k doesnt register that there is any space on the drine and PM8 says that the 80g is dynamic and has no free space.

Unfortunaely, formatting the drive is not an option as i have lots of files i wish to keep on it.

i have re-flashed my bios, tho i doubt i needed to as it is seperate from windows functions anyway, and the BIOS already recognises the drive at this time.

is there anyway i can access the drive to retrieve the information held within ?

[JacKDynne]

oh boy - did you create it as a dynamic disk? If so, you might have some troubles....

Quote:

What if you want to go back?
So what if you want to revert your dynamic disk back to basic? Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is, yes, you can revert your dynamic disks to basic disks. The bad news is that you can only revert if you remove all the volumes first. Why is that bad news? You'll lose all of your data! To revert your dynamic disk to basic, right-click on the dynamic disk in the Disk Management snap-in. Then, choose Revert To Basic Disk from the shortcut menu. If you're familiar with partition tools, you can also use partition deletion tools like fdisk or delpart to delete and re-create the partitions

Get the full page from the quote here: **http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...winpro0900.asp

Unfortunately zaz, I have not had to recover from something like this and I don't want to tell you one way or another if it will or will not work (recovering a dynamic disk in your particular situation) as I have yet to experience it. Perhaps some other members can shed some light on this and point you in the right direction...

Thanks for coming to BetaONE and please check back as others may know how to right this

I will keep looking though as well to find a method that may help you

/JD

[zaz]

just for further info :

soltek sl-kav-x m/b with q10 bios update
448 pc100 sdram
30g ibm deskstar ata100
80g ibm deskstar ata100
creative gf3 ti200 agp
2xNIC's
toshiba dvd
memorex 16max cdrw

with win2k pro OS

same setup as before, which worked under NTFS (allthough, again, 80g drive was dynamic then too)

[JacKDynne]

Also found this zaz:

Quote:

Upgrade a Basic Disk to a Dynamic Disk

Before you upgrade a basic disk to a dynamic disk, note the following:
You must have at least 1 MB of unallocated disk space available on the basic disk that you want to upgrade.
When you upgrade to a dynamic disk, the existing partitions on the basic disk are converted to simple volumes on the dynamic disk. In addition, any existing mirrored volumes, striped volumes, RAID-5 volumes, or spanned volumes are converted to the dynamic volume equivalent.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After you upgrade to a dynamic disk, the dynamic volumes cannot be changed back to partitions. You must first delete all dynamic volumes on the disk, and then convert the dynamic disk back to a basic disk.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After you upgrade to a dynamic disk, local access to the dynamic disk is limited to the Windows 2000 operating system.
To upgrade a basic disk to a dynamic disk:
In the graphical view of the Disk Management window, right-click the basic disk that you want to upgrade, and then click Upgrade to Dynamic Disk.

NOTE: You must right-click the gray area that contains the disk title at the left of the Disk Management details pane, for example, Disk 0.
In the Upgrade to Dynamic Disk dialog box, click to select the check box beside the disk that you want to upgrade, and then click OK.
In the Disks to Upgrade dialog box, click Details if you want to view the list of volumes in the disk.
Click Upgrade.
Click Yes when you are prompted to upgrade, and then click OK.
back to the top
How to Manage Dynamic Disks
Dynamic disk storage supports volume-oriented disks. A dynamic disk is a physical disk that contains dynamic volumes. With dynamic disks, you have the ability to create simple volumes, volumes that span multiple disks (spanned and striped volumes), and fault-tolerant volumes (mirrored and RAID-5 volumes). Dynamic disks can contain an unlimited number of volumes.

Local access to dynamic disks (and the data they contain) is limited to Windows 2000-based computers. Dynamic volumes cannot be accessed by, or created on, computers that are configured to dual-boot or multi-boot Windows 2000 and one or more versions of Windows NT 4.0 and earlier, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 98 Second Edition and earlier, and MS-DOS.

You create dynamic disks when you use the Upgrade to Dynamic Disk command in Disk Management to upgrade a basic disk.

Check this url for the whole content: **http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q308209

Hope this helps some but It's not looking like you can get the data back from that 80 gigger

/JD

[just_do_IT]

You most certainly can recover your data before you start messing with reversing of dynamic disk.

Send me a pm or contact me on messenger and I will help you out