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Dynamic Disk Unreadable WITH 6 DISKS!

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - Dynamic Disk Unreadable WITH 6 DISKS!

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slippy   03-29-2007 at 12:41:25 AM

Hi guys (gals!)

I was running a six disk 1x80gb 5x120gb setup in my computer, non raid, all dynamic disks in a WinXP Pro system. The boot 120gb contained my XP install and after about 3+ years of the same install, I decided to grab a new 120gb I had and install windows.

I didn't touch the other drives or hook them back up, was doing the whole 60+ hours a week thing at work and didn't have time. So I decided I needed some of my stuff back, been forever time to get it done.

Start hooking up drives. All are now listing in windows as Dynamic Unreadable.

I've tried using them in a USB shell, no difference.

I tried the trick at lazyadmin to change them to basic disks without a format, no difference.

I could REALLY use some advice on this, some of the stuff is certainly not backed up and has convinced me to pick up one of those 1.5TB Maxtor drive arrays to put all this stuff in one safe(ish) place when I get it recovered.

I have a copy of Partition Magic that I haven't touched (had bad experiences with it in the past).

Help!

(Also tried DiskInternals NTFS softwares to no avail, and the registry fix that you can find as a early hit on the MS KB)

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choirbass   03-29-2007 at 09:58:17 AM
- 0 +

my guess is that if this is a different installation of windows xp, that it wont be able to read the dynamic disks from a different installation... if you still have the other windows xp installation, go back to that (and as long as you havent changed or modified anything at all), you 'should' be able to then recover your data

Reply to choirbass
darkstar782   03-29-2007 at 10:36:54 AM
- 0 +

Dynamic disks should be fully portable between windows installs, although you may need to use the Disk Management interface to import them.

Unless you are now running XP Home which in no way supports dynamic disks?

Reply to darkstar782
choirbass   03-29-2007 at 10:40:17 AM
- 0 +

that could be, whichcase im not sure what would cause his situation really... as far as xp home, i believe you need pro to use dynamic disks, because if i remember correctly (and i could be wrong), under xp home you cant access the disk management console then

Reply to choirbass
darkstar782   03-29-2007 at 10:46:59 AM
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You can access Disk Management in XP Home for partitioning etc, but it simply will not touch Dynamic disks.

Reply to darkstar782
choirbass   03-29-2007 at 10:47:56 AM
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okay

edit: i googled and found this forum thread where a user had a similar question to the OPs, they offered a few suggestions, though it involved 3rd party software
http://forums.getdata.com/showthread.php?t=18

Reply to choirbass
slippy   03-29-2007 at 01:28:20 PM
- 0 +

I saw that on google too. Software does find files, but, all my drives are maxed. Software does not find all files either. Nor does there appear to be a "rebuild" option in the latest version of that "recovermydata" software.

Running XP Pro SP2 (as was old install).

Don't think I have the old XP install still.

Reply to slippy
slippy   03-29-2007 at 01:33:45 PM
- 0 +

Now that gave me a glimmer of hope....

"... although you may need to use the Disk Management interface to import them. ..."

Can you clarify by chance?

Reply to slippy
McPhisto   03-29-2007 at 06:08:51 PM
- 0 +

I think he might have been referring to, where, if you right click on the tab/button's which say Disk 0, Disk 1 etc, there is an option to import foreign disc (nb. i think you only see this if it needs importing) In mine I get the option to convert to dynamic disk.

I'm no expert on this but it possibly might help, although I might wait 'til someone confirms what I think is correct or otherwise :)

Reply to McPhisto
lafontma   03-29-2007 at 06:35:17 PM
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Mcphisto is right.

Dynamic disk need to be imported when moved from 1 installation of XP to another. Which is what you are doing when you reinstalled.

Right-clicking and importing them thru the disk management should fix the problem.

BUT... converting dynamic back to basic disk is a DESTRUCTIVE procedure..

I think you may have lost the data by reverting to basic disk

Reply to lafontma
slippy   03-29-2007 at 07:29:19 PM
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disk was not actually converted. take a look at lazyadmin dynamic under google. . . .

Reply to slippy
slippy   03-30-2007 at 05:05:37 AM
- 0 +

running stellar phoenix fat & ntfs now.....

can anyone give me any help with the information presented here?

http://www.dbforums.com/showthread [...] 935&page=2

program named dmpss.exe looks like it might be key.....

Reply to slippy
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