How to convert dynamic disk to basic disk?

For most friends, computer has only one hard disk, and the disk form used by us is basic disk. Therefore, many friends know little about another disk form – dynamic disk. So what is dynamic disk? Now there is detailed introduction. 

The conception of Dynamic disk was introduced by Microsoft since Windows 2000, and it is added into Disk Management Tool. Compared with our common basic disk form, it has many advantages. For example, we all know partition amount id limited in basic disk – partitions can only be labeled with drive latter C-Z. But it is not like this in dynamic disk, because we can create more “partitions” (it is called as “volume” in dynamic disk) in dynamic disk, but get rid of the limitation. In addition, on dynamic disk, we can create multiple kinds of volumes, such as simple volume which is familiar with basic volume; spanned volume which can be created through spanning the disk, mirror volume which can be used as mirror; stripped volume and RAID-5. These different volumes have different features, so dynamic disk is more superior than basic disk. And the most obviously is that dynamic disk allows us to store mass data. We all know that we must perform partitioning operations before storing data, but the data amount is limited by partition size or the whole disk size. If we use dynamic disk form, we can create partition with capacity which is greater than the single disk capacity. And then store data to store mass data in single partition.    

After hearing these advantages, maybe many friends want to know how we can convert basic disk to dynamic disk. The method is very simple, as long as our operating system supports dynamic disk, we can perform operations below. Right click “My computer”-“Management”-“Disk Management” to enter disk management interface, and then right click disk to choose “convert to dynamic disk”. By these steps, we can convert basic disk to dynamic disk without damaging data.

Maybe many friends have tried to convert the basic disk to dynamic disk. But after the operation, some friends begin to be confused that why I can’t create various kinds of volumes? Maybe you don’t notice the premise that “under multiple disks”. Various advantages of dynamic disk are reflected when there are multiple disks in computer. If there is only one disk, we can only create the basic simple volume, which is not quite different from basic disk. And if we convert the only disk to dynamic disk, it doesn’t facilitate us to manage disk. So if there is only one computer disk, I suggest you not converting it. 

Some friends may have converted the only disk to dynamic disk, but now you can’t convert dynamic disk to basic disk. This is because that the system built-in Disk Management Tool can’t convert dynamic disk to basic disk when there are partitions in disk. If we want to use the system built-in Disk Management Tool to convert dynamic disk to basic disk, we have to delete disk partitions before converting. But if we delete disk partitions, we may suffer mass data loss. As for the system partition, the operating system doesn’t allow us to delete it. Many friends are trapped in this situation.  

Now, if we want to convert dynamic disk to basic disk, we need to turn to the third-party disk management software, because only the third-party disk management software can convert dynamic disk to basic disk without damaging disk data. However, when choosing the third-party disk management software, we should notice the software security to avoid unnecessary trouble. If you don’t know which third-party disk management software is suitable, you can try to use the partition management software MiniTool Partition Wizard 7.5. I use it to perform many kinds of partition management, and one of its functions can convert dynamic disk to basic disk. It is very useful, so you can have a try.