How to Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk without Losing Data

Summary: Do you want to know how you can easily convert dynamic disk into basic disk without losing data? Read this post to get detailed information on this topic.

Convert Dynamic disk to basic without losing data for free

In Windows OS, there are two types of disks—Basic and Dynamic. The fundamental difference between the two is that former is the default disk type used by Windows OS while the latter is used (by professional and IT experts) to create volumes that span multiple disks and more complex fault-tolerant (mirrored and RAID-5) volumes.

Most importantly, Windows Home editions do not support dynamic disks. Thus, you cannot access an internal or external hard drive that has turned into a dynamic disk volume.

You can revert and convert dynamic hard drive to basic, but the conversion process erases all the data permanently from the drive, which leads to data loss.

So in this post, we have explained how to convert dynamic disk to basic disk, without losing the data in Window 10/8/7. The process is quick, easy, and anyone can follow it with the help of step-by-step instructions given below.

How to Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk without Losing Data?

It is a two-step process to convert dynamic disk to basic without losing your critical (and inaccessible) data—

  1. Recover data from a dynamic disk
  2. Convert dynamic disk to basic with Disk Management tool

Step 1: Restore Data from a Dynamic Disk

As the dynamic disk is inaccessible, you need a software that can restore data from such drive partition(s). This should be done before converting dynamic disk to basic, as it involves deletion of a dynamic disk volume that results in permanent data loss.

So before you convert dynamic disk to basic, recover data by following these steps:

After the data is restored from the dynamic disk, head to the next step, and convert dynamic disk to basic without data loss.

Step 2: Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic

There are two different ways to convert a dynamic disk into a basic disk. Use either the Disk Management tool (UI tool) or Command Prompt (command line—DiskPart) in case the Disk Management tool fails. We have discussed both ways down below.

#Way 1: Convert Invalid Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk by using Disk Management

#Way 2: Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic by using Command Prompt

select disk <disknumber>
details disk <disknumber>

select volume= <volumenumber>

delete volume

select disk <disknumber>

convert basic

Final Thoughts

We discussed basic and dynamic disks, their usage, and the two-step process to convert dynamic disk to basic in Windows 10/8/7 without losing the data. To use a dynamic disk, get Windows Pro/Enterprise/Ultimate edition, as Windows Home editions do not support dynamic disk.

Also, the two-step process we illustrated uses a Windows data recovery software, i.e. Stellar Data Recovery which comes handy in most common data loss situations. The software can restore accidentally deleted data and files from a corrupt or formatted drive.

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