How to convert dynamic disk to basic disk without losing data in Windows 11,10, 8, 7? The best dynamic disk converter- AOMEI Dynamic Disk Converter can help you make that.
By
Emily
/ Last Updated May 12, 2023
There are two types of disks when referring to storage types in computers: basic disks and dynamic disks. Basic disks are the storage types most often used with Windows. It refers to a disk that contains partitions such as primary partitions and logical drives. Besides, those partitions are usually formatted to be NTFS or FAT32 for file storage.
Dynamic disks provide some features that basic disk do not. For example, it allows you to create volumes that span multiple disks (spanned and striped volumes) and fault-tolerant volumes (mirrored and RAID-5 volumes). Besides, they use a database to track information about dynamic volumes on the disk and other dynamic disks on the computer, so it is more flexible for volume management than basic disks.
Although dynamic disks offer better flexibility for disk management than basic disks, they also have some limitations. First of all, the dynamic disk has many compatibility issues with other services like iSCSI, USB, and Firewire and cannot be read by a number of Windows operating systems. When you try to install Windows 7 Home on a dynamic disk, you may receive the error "Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space...".
That’s because dynamic disks are only supported for Windows 7 Enterprise/Professional/Ultimate, and Windows 7 Home Basic/Premium and Starter are not supported. Besides, the dynamic disk is mainly used for huge storage while basic disks is better for ordinary data storage. For these reasons, many people opt to convert dynamic disk to basic one in Windows 10, Windows 8 or Windows 7.
To change dynamic disk to a basic disk, you need the help of a dynamic disk converter. Firstly, you can try the free dynamic disk converters that Windows provide: Disk Management and DiskPart. These two tools can only convert an empty dynamic disk to basic one, so you need to delete dynamic volumes first. It is advised to back up all necessary data on the dynamic disk before operation.
▶Use Disk Management:
1. Press “Windows + R” to access “Run” box. In “Run” box, input “diskmgmt.msc” and hit “Enter” to open Disk Management.
2. Right-click every volume on the dynamic disk and choose “Delete Volume”.
3. After deleting all partitions on the dynamic disk, right-click the dynamic disk and choose “Convert to Basic Disk”.
▶Use DiskPart:
1. In the Run box, type “diskpart” and hit “Enter” to Run Diskpart.
2. In Diskpart interface, run the following commands:
list disk
select disk n, (“n” refers the disk number of the dynamic that you want to convert)
list volume
select volume m,(“m” is the number of the volume on the dynamic disk)
delete volume (repeat these two commands to delete all volumes)
select disk n
convert basic
Although the Disk Management and DiskPart can free convert dynamic disk to basic one in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, you have to delete all existing dynamic volumes first, which causes data loss. So, today, we will also share another safer dynamic disk converter: AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. It allows you to convert disk into basic without deleting volumes.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional and click "Dynamic Disk Manager".
Step 2. Then the AOMEI Dynamic Disk Manager will be fired up. In the main interface, locate the target dynamic disk and choose “Convert to Basic Disk”.
Step 3. In the pop-up window, click “OK” button.
Step 4. Return to the main interface. Confirm your operation and click “Commit” > “Proceed” to perform it.
After a while, you can convert the dynamic disk into basic without data loss.
So, here we not only introduce Windows native free dynamic disk converter, but also share a powerful 3rd-party dynamic disk converting software. If you want to convert dynamic disk to basic disk without deleting volumes and losing data, the AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is more recommended.
More excitingly, it also comes with many other features: convert MBR and GPT without deleting partitions, transfer OS between MBR and GPT disks, allocate free space from one partition to another one, etc. If you are using Windows Server operating system, you can use the AOMEI Partition Assistant Server.
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