Dynamic Disk confirmation on True Image 9.0 Latest?

Hi there,

Can anybody confirm the situation with dynamic disks for windows xp using True Image 9.0 latest build?

I am not bothered if i cannot clone from dynamic to dynamic but i currently have a standard IDE hard disk (SYSTEM c which is a Dynamic disk and need to upgrade this disk using an S-ATA hard disk.

Is this going to be a problem because of the Dynamic disk C:?

If this is the case what alternative and safe way do i have to convert my Dynamic disk back to a basic disk which i presume then would support the cloning?

Any ideas are most welcome

Thanks

ian

 

I recently had to convert a dynamic disk back to a basic one so I could use Acronis with it and found that if you deleted the partitions on it within Windows XP using Disk Manager and formatted it the disk remained dynamic. I turned it back into a basic disk by using the Windows 98 start up floppy and FDisk to delete the partition, create a new one and format it but you could probably use a Windows XP CD and go through the initial steps of reinstalling Windows XP and when all the disks are listed, choose the disk you want to make basic, delete the partitions on it and format it and it would probably work as well and turn it into a basic disk. To ensure that the existing Windows installation remained unaltered while you did this or that you didn't accidentally choose the wrong disk you could disconnect all the hard disks apart from the one you wanted to change back to basic before you did this.

 

Hello ianinspain5305,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please be aware that Acronis True Image 9.0 does not support Windows dynamic disks. Thus, you should convert your dynamic disk(s) back to basic in order to be able to clone or image this disk(s) using Acronis True Image 9.0.

As for transferring your operating system from IDE to SATA hard drives, please take a look at this article.

You can find the detailed instructions on how to use Acronis True Image 9.0 in the respective User's Guide.

You may also find Acronis True Image 9.0 FAQ page helpful.

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Thanks for the reply..

This is my situation.

I have a new s-ata drive which is unpartitioned etc.. hence it can become a basic disk... no probs.

My main system C: is a Dynamic Disk ... hence you mean i have to convert it back to a Basic disk to do the clone?

But how is this possible it isn't possible to convert dynamic disks to basic disks - is it?

Or do i have another method i.e. BACKUP C: using Acronis True Image and the restore onto Clean drive S-ATA --- i presume this needs to happen in some kind of DOS mode

I am very confused now, any ideas?

At the end of the day I need to get my drive C: (old - current) onto a new disk which will replace the current C: including all system folders and is bootable with the xp

Please advise

Thanks

Ian

 

Hello Ian,

I've never tried it but check out this previous post by <TheQuest> on how to convert a Dynamic disk to Basic. Seems it's not for the faint hearted though!!

Regards

 

It certainly is possible. A dynamic disk is physically identical to a basic disk. The thing that makes it 'dynamic' is not hardware related but rather something to do with the way the disk is initially set up to operate and this is changeable back to the more usual basic disk set up. I recently posted about how Norton SystemWorks 2006 had changed all my basic disks to dynamic making it impossible to use Acronis (Acronis could not even see the dynamic disks when using the boot CD) until I changed them back to basic disks. I changed one of the disks back using the Windows 98 start up floppy to go into Dos and apply FDisk to delete the partition, create a new one and format the disk but if you don't feel comfortable with or are unfamiliar with this method you could probably achieve the same result by booting with the Windows XP CD in your CD Rom drive and the bios set to boot from CD before the hard disk and go through the initial steps of reinstalling Widows XP. When the disks in your computer are shown, delete the partition on the dynamic disk and then format it (doing this within Windows XP doesn’t work as the disk stays dynamic) or you could try the way described in the link provided by Menorcaman.

I found this explanation of what a Dynamic disk is at a Microsoft site:

I also found a simple way (you certainly don't need to have advanced computer skills to follow the steps!) to change Dynamic disks to Basic disks from within Windows although it appears to be the first thing I tried when I attempted it using Disk Manager and did not work for me but I may have done something wrong:

This is also from a Microsoft site:

 

Hello ianinspain5305,

Please be aware that as I have already mentioned above Acronis True Image 9.0 allows you to backup\clone basic disks only. It does not allow you to perform any imaging\cloning operations on the dynamic disks both from under Windows and when running in rescue mode (e.g. Bootable Rescue CD).

Please also note that I'm not eligible to provide you with the instructions on how to convert dynamic disk back to basic, but you can try to follow TheQuest's method suggested above by Menorcaman.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Just to clarify...

Acronis True Image 9 does not work with dynamic disks.
You cannot convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk without losing all the contents on the dynamic disk.
So you need to back up the contents of the dynamic disc before you convert it to a basic disk.
But you cannot do this with Acronis True Image 9 because it does not work with dynamic discs.

Is this correct?

 

I recall that there is another suggestion similar to that mentioned by the quest somewhere on this forum.

It might be in the DiskDirector forum, as I recall it used just the disk editor and changing the volume type did the trick.

However, i also recall ggoglingat that time and found some other websites with similar information.

As far as I know changing the volume type doesn't actually wipe the contents of your disk, just the pointers to where all the files are. I'm not sure if with a dynamic disk if the MFT is updated as well as the file volume which lurks in that spare 7-8Mb at the end of your dynamic disk. If the MFT is updated then I'd hazard a guess, that losing the volume info won't be a disaster. - Perhaps the MS newsgroups might be of some help.

Colin

 

Hi,

Correct. However, certain flavours of True Image 9.1 do work with dynamic disks but, even then, there are some limitations (this extract from TI 9.1 Server FAQ refers. TI 9.1 Enterprise Server has the same restriction):

The <procedure posted by TheQuest> appears not to cause loss of data.

If you use TheQuest's procedure - No but if you use Microsoft's procedure posted by Mareke at #6 above then - Yes.

Correct.

Regards