Can dynamic disk be converted to basic disk?

i would agree with this point defnitely, the biggest risk with dynamic disks is if you lose just one HD, the whole lot is gone!

If you have RAID 5 then one might consider using dynamic disks.

The convenience of having all in one filespace just isn't worth it otherwise.

Now os boots (after 45mins) if the 500gb hdd is attached, but wont recognize the drive. Getdataback for ntfs shows invalid mft table for both logical volumes. does not copy or repair or do anything after that!

booting in safemode with command prompt - i can see both the logical partitions in the dynamic hdd and can see all files and folders in dos mode but cant copy them - i get access denied error

downloaded TestDisk , will try it now! hope to recover the volumes!!
Thanks Raghu - u gave a ray of hope to me!!

I asked him, and he posted, its right below my post

^^ i need some rest i think! also some hot cups of coffee
heh heh!!

bad news! ran seagate disk tools in dos mode with a bootable cd and only the bad hdd attached! more than 200 errors on the drive!! i'll have to send the drive for rma now!

only prob is how to get the data off it? is putting the drive in an external hdd sata enclosure good so that i can boot into windows normally and then try to get the data off it? seems like this whole month is ruined now!!

That wouldn't be any different if you used a bootable cd and had the drive attched where it is already.

What recovery tools do you have maybe those could help.

Was Testdisk able to repair the mft ?

couldn't use testdisk - os wont boot with bad hdd!

then i have getdataback, and ntexplorer.

Seatools from seagate is just for disk diagnostics - it can repair hdd bad sectors (actually it remaps the sectors i think so i left it alone - dont want to replace the data right?)

i dont have any blank hdd or blank dvds, so i'll be getting one more 500gb hdd this week - hopefully not seagate!

so my situation is this - if i get a new hdd (which i should to recover data) i will have it installed in my machine together with my bootable hdd. now if i try to be smart and add the bad hdd, then the os wont boot - so i'm thinking of getting an external case so that i could get a chance of using testdisk / gdb.

anything more u ppl could think of?

Even if you modify boot order in BIOS to boot from CD/DVD drive first ?

umm didn't try that! i have only win xp (x64) sp1 bootable disk, and my os is winxp sp2 (x64).

the bootable i was talking of is seatools - which i got from seagate site.

Testdisk was what worked for me, along with the instructions in the 1st link. If the hdd itself is damaged then its difficult recovering the data

Raghu.

sorry to bump this thread up, but seems like my hdd is badly damaged now. test disk shows this:
.......Partition..................Start........... ................End..............Size in Sectors
D HPFS - NTFS............0.........1..1......12748........2 54 63..........204812622 [New Volume]
D HPFS - NTFS............12748 54 42.....60800.......254 63..........771968002 [New Volume]

using > arrow key i can change the D to * (bootable), P - Primary, D - deleted, L - Logical.
Also have options of: A: Add partition, L = load backup, T = change type, P = list files.
if i change any one to P or * i get the whole line in green colour like this:
P or * HPFS - NTFS............0.........1..1......12748........2 54 63..........204812622 [New Volume]

but if the do anything to second line (with first line green ) i get structure damaged error.
Tried - P (i get file structure damaged), L - no partition found, backup does ot match or damaged.

Tried Analyse - no partition found, takes long time.

How to undelete the 2 partitions which is shown as deleted currently? pls help any1 who has used testdisk??

Hard disk errors are invariably tragedies . I've never encountered a problem where I escaped with all my data intact.