Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk Windows 10

Why Do You Convert Basic Disks to Dynamic 

Windows 2000 introduces the concept of dynamic disks. It allows you to use basic disks to convert to the dynamic disk to take advantage of additional features. When you first install Windows 2000/XP Professional, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2000/2003/2008, all disks are initialized as basic. You can easily convert basic disk to dynamic disk using 'Convert to Dynamic Disk' option with Windows built-in partition manager without losing any data and get additional features as follows:

• Disk and volume management tasks are performed without having to restart the computer afterward.
• Create volumes that span multiple disks.
• Extend a simple or spanned volume.
• Dynamic disks support an unlimited number (up to 2000) of volumes.
• Dynamic disks do not use a Master Boot Record (MBR). Disk layout information is stored on the last 1 MB of the disk.
• A dynamic disk can contain simple volumes, spanned volumes, striped volumes, mirrored volumes, and RAID-5 volumes.

Why Do You Convert Dynamic Disks to Basic

Although dynamic disks contain too many advantages than basic disks, it also has some problems as below which make you have to convert dynamic disks back to basic.

1. According to Microsoft Windows users, to convert drive with Windows Vista installed from basic to dynamic disk may result in the dynamic Drive volumes could not be deleted when you try to reinstall Microsoft Windows Vista.

2. Accidentally convert basic disk to dynamic disk.

3. Some examples in the forum as follows:

• "I am having Windows Vista ultimate SP2 running on my computer & want to convert dynamic type disk to a basic one, but without formatting the computer....!"
• "I have to install the Windows system under 2000, but the dynamic disk does not allow me to, how can I change dynamic disks back to basic?"

How to Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk

As we know, once you changed basic disk to dynamic disk, you cannot convert the dynamic disk back to basic disk directly without deleting the partitions and rebuilding the disk under Windows Disk Management.

In this case, a third-party dynamic disk convert software like EaseUS Partition Master will save a lot of trouble to convert dynamic disk to basic without data loss safely.

To change a dynamic disk back to basic disk without data loss, please follow the steps below:

Case 1: Convert Dynamic Disk Containing Simple Volumes to a Basic Disk

EaseUS Partition Master can change dynamic disk containing simple volumes into a basic disk directly.

Download the EaseUS Partition Master partition tool and install it. 

 

Step 1: Install and open EaseUS Partition Master on your Windows computer by clicking the download button.

Step 2: Select dynamic disk which you want to convert to basic. Right-click it and choose "Convert to Basic".

Step 3: Click "OK" on the pop-up window and you will add this conversion to the pending operations.

Step 4: Click the "Execute 1 Operation" button at the top-left corner and "Apply" to begin to convert dynamic to basic disk. After that, you can also use this partition manager to resize/move, clone, merge, format, and delete the partitions. 

Case 2: Convert Dynamic Disk Containing Mirrored Volumes to a Basic Disk

EaseUS Partition Master can change dynamic disk containing mirrored volumes into a basic one indirectly. To convert mirrored volumes, you need to break mirrored volumes by using Windows Disk Management and then convert dynamic disk to basic disk with the "Convert to basic disk" feature of EaseUS Partition Master.

Step 1. Right-click "My Computer" and choose "Manage" -> "Storage" -> "Disk Management", right-click the mirrored volumes and choose "Break Mirrored Volume" to break mirrored volumes or choose "Remove Mirror" to remove the mirror. If the boot/system partition is on the mirrored volumes, you can only choose "Remove Mirror" to remove the mirror. Please backup your important data before this operation.

Step 2. After choosing "Break Mirrored Volume" or "Remove Mirror", the mirrored volumes on the dynamic disk which you want to Convert to basic disk will become simple volumes. Follow the steps in Case 1 to complete converting dynamic disk containing simple volumes to basic disk.

If you want to know the way to use CMD to convert to basic disk, you could follow case 3.

Case 3: Covert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk Using Cmd Without Losing Data

• Step 1. Open Command Prompt by pressing Win + R at the same time in Windows 10/8/7.
• Step 2. Type: diskpart and hit Enter to enter Command Prompt window.
• Step 3. Type: list disk and hit Enter. Do remember the number of the disk that you want to convert to Dynamic.
• Step 4. Type: select disk 0 (0 is the disk number of the disk that you want to convert) and hit Enter.
• Step 5. Type: convert dynamic and hit Enter.