Drive no longer boots after converting to Dynamic

[jackdup]

How are you accessing the PC? You mentioned X which means your booting into ram and windows recovery?

After having no success I removed the drive and have been doing everything using a SATA to USB convertor cable on my VISTA laptop.

Prior to removing the drive and when I first started trying to find a non-destructive solution the computer would try to repair things and as I mentioned in the original post there were numerous different options offered and one was a command prompt. Years and years ago I used MS-DOS a fair amount so started going through different drive letters and then using dir to find out what was on the given partition, well I guess volume, as dynamic drives technically don't use partitions. It has been a little while and I have done so much since but if I recall correctly when I first went into a DOS window the prompt was x:\windows\system32 so after trying c and d and finding they were both recovery partitions I went back to drive x and it appears to contain the original contents of drive c if you know what I mean.

 

[jackdup]

well you have two drives with the same data - so you should only test with one drive..

That was my thought as well and I will likely get an external drive to backup the data through TESTDISK if I don't find any other solution before that as I don't think that option will give me a bootable drive but do believe I will be able to salvage the majority of what is on the drive, just don't like the idea of spending the next few days getting things back to where they were before I started.

 

[KYHI]

you booted into winpe / winre.. that is the windows dir you found on X..

 

[KYHI]

well you have two drives with the same data - so you should only test with one drive..

That was my thought as well and I will likely get an external drive to backup the data through TESTDISK if I don't find any other solution before that as I don't think that option will give me a bootable drive but do believe I will be able to salvage the majority of what is on the drive, just don't like the idea of spending the next few days getting things back to where they were before I started.

you are ready have a backup - the other cloned disk although also a dynamic disk

After having no success I removed the drive and have been doing everything using a SATA to USB convertor cable on my VISTA laptop.

since you have two drive the same and you have acces to one of the drives - convert that drive to basic - even if the efi/msr partitions are wiped - you should now have access to the data-- you can then work on making it a booted drive that is the easy part..

 

[jackdup]

I do have a backup but am very paranoid at this point. My concern is if I try something and if does not work and I lose what is on one of the drives then anything tried after that could result in losing everything on the second disk as well. Using TESTDISK I found a way to backup my data files so am now backing up one of the drives onto an external drive and is about half way through right now. When it is completed i'll feel better about experimenting.

While backing up one drive I actually installed the other drive in my desktop and unlike using the USB convertor it is actually seen as a valid drive and have attached a screen capture from Windows storage management. I can also access the drive in explorer as well and all of my files appear to be there.

I started Partition Manager and did a screen capture before attempting the conversion which is numbered 1 and another screen capture numbered 2 after attempting the conversion. I did not commit the conversion and would appreciate if you could have a look at these and let me know if you think what is shown for after the conversion looks appropriate.

I was also wondering if the drive could be left as dynamic and made to be bootable again as I still need to implement RAID 1 or mirroring, and will need the drive as dynamic to do that.

I'll post the screen captures in a separate post as I am on my iPad now and the captures are on my desktop.

Thanks for hanging in with me and appreciate your help.

 

[jackdup]

Here are the screen captures I mentioned. As I am not knowledgeable enough in this area I would certainly appreciate your expertise.

Thank you.

 

[KYHI]

At some point you need to have a pair..

 

[jackdup]

At some point you need to have a pair..

So is it possible to make the drive bootable as a dynamic drive, and if so what do I need to do, or how do I proceed?

Thank you

 

[KYHI]

How to Set up a Mirrored Array in Windows 8.1 - YouTube

First, set the SATA controller to RAID mode in BIOS, reboot and hit CTRL+I to enter the Intel RAID Configuration Utility.
From there, setup a RAID-0 Array, save, and reboot with your Windows 8 installation media.
It will recognized the RAID-0 array as one disk and you can install Windows there.

An easy way to setup RAID1 is to install Windows to just one HDD (unplug all other drives).
After installing drivers and updates, turn off the computer and connect the other HDD drive.
After booting back into Windows, Use Disk Management to convert both HDDs to Dynamic, and then you can mirror each partition on the first HDD onto the second.

 

[jackdup]

RAID is not an option in the BIOS and although the chipset has that capability Intel has suggested Samsung must have disabled it as some manufacturers apparently do again according to Intel. I have my desktop setup that way and wish I could setup my laptop the same way.

The last paragraph of your post is exactly what I did and is what started this situation. I converted to dynamic and then my computer would not boot. I don't know if looking at the screen capture above from disk management would give you any clues as to why it does not boot? If I either successfully convert the disks back to basic, or alternately reinstall from the recovery USB i am not sure how doing the conversion back to dynamic next time will give any different results than this time.

 

[jackdup]

I should mention I had watched that video before I proceeded. There appears to be only one partition on both of the drives used in the video and neither appeared to be the system drive or would be required to boot. As I mentioned I also posted at TechNet.Microsoft to confirm what I was doing and was assured it would work just fine so why it is not or what I need to do to make the dynamic drives boot I don't know.\

 

[jackdup]

since you have two drive the same and you have acces to one of the drives - convert that drive to basic - even if the efi/msr partitions are wiped - you should now have access to the data-- you can then work on making it a booted drive that is the easy part..

You mention that making it a booted drive is the easy part. Could you tell me how to do that? I would prefer to actually try to make the dynamic drive bootable so I can use it in a mirror setup so would appreciate your guidance doing that. If that doesn't prove successful then I will go the other route of changing the drive back to basic and if it is not bootable after the conversion will require your assistance again.

Thank you.

 

[KYHI]

You are using Software raid...

I was referring to making a Basic disk bootable..

According to other posts - you need to setup hardware Raid config - then install windows..

 

[jackdup]

Hardware RAID is not an option for this computer. At this point I am forgetting about hardware or software RAID just want to get this drive bootable again. I would prefer to leave it as dynamic and make it bootable and will worry about the rest later, just need to get this computer back running.

 

[KYHI]

OK..

 

[jackdup]

Can you offer any assistance with this?

 

[KYHI]

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb726994.aspx

 

[jackdup]

At some point you need to have a pair..

Well after seemingly exhausting every other option decided to use Partition Manager to convert back to basic and followed the instructions on the website. Everything seemed to be working exactly as it was supposed to and after telling it to commit the changes it advised it would have to restart the computer, which again is what the instructions said it may have to do however when it started to boot there was an error advsing there were changes made and giving two options. One was to start Windows normally and the other was to reccover so I selected start Windows normally however it started to load and then rebooted and is stuck in a loop. I selected recover and after several minutes of running it came up with a message it could not repair the problem so am wondering if you have any suggestions before I end up having to recover the OS on my desktop and reinstall everything like it appears I am going to have to do with the laptop?

Thank you

 

[KYHI]

boot from your setup media - and on the install screen - select repair this computer.. try that first..

else boot from setup media and hit F10 at install screen to bring up prompt and follow How To

 

[jackdup]

boot from your setup media - and on the install screen - select repair this computer.. try that first..

else boot from setup media and hit F10 at install screen to bring up prompt and follow How To

Thank you for the pdf.

I used system restore and my desktop is fine now. I don’t think the issue with it had anything to do with Partition Manager as I restored to a restore point from Feb 14 that was created before MS did an update so assume it had to do with the update.

Partition Manager did complete the conversion to basic however the drive is now shown as unallocated which isn’t surprising given the warning in Partition Manager and have now used TESTDISK to see if I can recover the drive before simply recovering the drive with the recovery media and reinstalling everything.

Here is a screen capture of the partitions it found which all appear to be correct however a person must specify the partition type for each of the partitions as listed at the bottom of the page so if you can help by telling me what type each partition is I can try to recover and write the partitions to the drive.

Thank you