How to change dynamic disk to basic disk safely and easily without losing data?

Dynamic disk or basic disk?

Yesterday I saw an intense discussion in a forum and many users argued if they should use dynamic disk or basic disk. This is really an annoying question and maybe there is no right answer. There are many reasons why many users choose dynamic disk, such as disk and volume management tasks are performed without having to restart the computer afterwards, dynamic disks support an unlimited number (up to 2000) of volumes, and volumes can be extended.

Many users prefer basic disk because of the following reasons: they think basic disk is the most compatible disk type; dynamic disk cannot be resized directly before Windows Vista; dynamic disk only exist after Windows 2000 version and many other reasons.

Could we convert basic disk to dynamic disk or change dynamic disk to basic? In Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 and Server 2000/2003/2008 (32bit and 64bit), it is easy to convert basic disk to dynamic disk, but change dynamic disk to basic disk is very annoying. How to change dynamic disk to basic disk in an easy and safe way without losing data?

What is the safest and easiest way to change dynamic disk to basic disk?

If you want to use the Windows built-in disk management to convert dynamic disk to basic, you need to delete all the volumes on the dynamic disk. Now, with the help of EASEUS Partition Master, you can do it directly and keep all the volumes intact.

Let's take steps to see how to convert dynamic disk to basic directly:

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.

1. Launch EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition.

2. Select dynamic disk which you want to convert to basic disk on the disk map, click "Disk" on main menu and choose "Convert to Basic Disk" or right click the dynamic disk and choose "Convert to Basic Disk".

3. After you choose "Convert to Basic Disk", you will see the dynamic disk has become basic disk on the disk map.

4. Click "Apply" to convert dynamic disk to basic disk. After EASEUS Partition Master applies these changes, you will see the dynamic disk has become basic disk in Windows Disk Management. And then you can use "Resize/Move" feature to resize partitions on the basic disk.

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.

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 mirror. If the boot/system partition is on the mirrored volumes, you can only choose "Remove Mirror" to remove mirror. Please backup your important data before this operation.

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

Tips:

1. This Convert to Basic Disk feature is unavailable in Linux bootable disk.

2. This Convert to Basic Disk feature can only process dynamic disk with simple and mirrored volumes. Other types of dynamic volume like spanned volume, striped volume are not supported. How to convert dynamic disk with mirrored volumes?

3. This Convert to Basic Disk feature can only support converting up to 4 simple volumes on dynamic disk. Because the basic disk based on MBR can only create up to 4 primary partitions.

4. All other operations are not available before "Convert to Basic Disk" is applied.

5. After converting, all volumes will be primary partitions.

More features of EASEUS Partition Master.

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