Invalid Dynamic Disk

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My Win 7 system boots from nr 1 HDD and I have another 2TB HDD with (precious !) data. This 2nd HDD was originally created in Win XP. When I first connected it to the PC Win 7 did not pick it up. That was fixed (I forgot what I did then). Now, after working fine for some time, Windows does not show the 2nd drive. It is shown in Disk Management as “Dynamic” and “Invalid”. So what do I do now the get access to this drive? Any lost of data is not acceptable.

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The official documentation says you can’t access the data.

However, here is a blog entry that points to TestDisk. The blog describes that TestDisk will do what you want and it’s free.

There are paid for tools such as Aomei that suggest they will also recover the data, but there is no information about how they work, nor any experience with them. When a champion of that tool recommended it here in the lounge recently, there was no follow-up on information on its provenance, so I can’t recommend it myself.

Unfortunately, I think you are going to have to take some risk since it will be impossible to backup the data right now and an invalid dynamic disk cannot be recovered back to a basic partition within Windows without destroying the partition and irrevocably deleting the data.

Assuming you are successful, immediately take a backup and consider how to schedule automated backups for such critical data.

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Thanks Tinto. I will look into your advice tomorrow. Looks promising. This 2nd disk is my back-up disk !

Any idea why this would happen to a disk?

Fred: I am running Win 7 Pro (64 bit). So why am I havng this problem?

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Any idea why this would happen to a disk?

Fred: I am running Win 7 Pro (64 bit). So why am I havng this problem?

Leon ,
The question is How did the HD get changed from “Basic” to “Dynamic” on it’s own? At this point i have no idea.I’ll do some searching:cheers: Regards Fred

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Windows does not show the 2nd drive. It is shown in Disk Management as “Dynamic” and “Invalid”. So what do I do now the get access to this drive? Any lost of data is not acceptable.

Leon,
Hello…my 2¢ ..I’m running Windows 7 Pro which can “Handle Dynamic” HD’s. Windows 7 Home, etc. cannot .. If you have “Pro” or above, or have access to a PC that does it might be able to deal with this problem.. If you can get the HD to another PC (Pro or above) you might be able to read then copy the “Data” off to another “Basic” HD (using a program like TeraCopy Free) … :cheers: Regards Fred

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This 2nd disk is my back-up disk !

ONLY if the original data resides on your first disk. ??Do you mean this is your DATA disk??

Zig :confused:

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Recently had similar problem with a friend’s drive although not a “Dynamic” problem. Windows could not read disk. I booted computer with a Puppy Live (Linux) disk and was able to read and recoup data from drive. A “Live” Ubuntu boot disk might have done the trick also.

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. When I first connected it to the PC Win 7 did not pick it up. That was fixed (I forgot what I did then). Now, after working fine for some time, Windows does not show the 2nd drive. It is shown in Disk Management as “Dynamic” and “Invalid”.

Leon,
When in “Disk Management” can you Right click on the Drive? If so can you then choose a drive letter?…Regards Fred

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Zig: Yes, it is a DATA disk rather than a BACKUP disk.
TestDisk did the trick, painlessly. That does not mean that I did not worry my head off. Losing data is never fun even if it can be replaced.
Thanks again to all.

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Leon,

Then – the moral of this whole exercise is:

YOU NEED A (SEPARATE) BACKUP DISK!!!

Zig

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