How to Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk without Data Loss?

Windows Operating System supports two types of disk storage: basic and dynamic. Basic disk storage uses partition-oriented disks. A basic disk contains basic volumes (primary partitions, extended partitions, and logical drives); While dynamic disk storage uses volume-oriented disks, with the advantages like the ability to create volumes that span multiple disks (spanned and striped volumes).

However, due to the limitation of Windows Disk Management, it cannot convert dynamic disk to basic disk without data loss, because you must delete all volumes on dynamic disk so that you can convert it to basic disk by Disk Management. However, partition manager software - EaseUS Partition Master can convert dynamic disk to basic disk directly without deleting all volumes.

How to convert dynamic disk to basic disk with partition manager?

If you want to convert the dynamic disk back into a basic disk without data loss, EaseUS Partition Master will achieve this task for you. It has already offered the feature to convert dynamic disk containing simple or mirrored volumes to basic disk. The following is step-by-step instructions to convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk with EaseUS Partition Master.

Here we take the free partition software - EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition as an example.

Before you change a dynamic disk into a basic disk, please back up the disk.

Case 1: Convert dynamic disk containing simple volumes to a basic disk.

EaseUS Partition Master can change dynamic disk containing simple volumes into a basic disk directly.

1. Launch EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition, and go to main screen.

2. Select dynamic disk which you want to Convert to basic disk on the disk map, Disk becomes available on the toolbar. Click "Disk" and choose "Convert to basic disk" or right click the dynamic disk and choose "Convert to basic disk".

3. After you choose "Convert to basic disk", you will see the dynamic disk has become basic disk on the disk map.

4. Click "Apply" to convert dynamic disk to basic disk. After EaseUS Partition Master applies these changes, you will see the dynamic disk has become basic disk in Windows Disk Management. And then you can use "Resize/Move partition" feature to resize partitions on the basic disk. You can also use "Resize volume" to resize dynamic disk directly.

Case 2: Convert dynamic disk containing mirrored volumes to a basic disk.

EaseUS Partition Master can change dynamic disk containing mirrored volumes into a basic one indirectly. To convert mirrored volumes, you need to break mirrored volumes by Windows Disk Management and then convert dynamic disk to basic disk with the "Convert to basic disk" feature of EaseUS Partition Master.

1. Right click "My Computer" and choose "Manage" -> "Storage" -> "Disk Management", right click the mirrored volumes and choose "Break Mirrored Volume" to break mirrored volumes or choose "Remove Mirror" to remove mirror. If the boot/system partition is on the mirrored volumes, you can only choose "Remove Mirror" to remove mirror. Please backup your important data before this operation.

2. After choosing "Break Mirrored Volume" or "Remove Mirror", the mirrored volumes on the dynamic disk which you want to Convert to basic disk will become simple volumes. Follow the steps in Case 1 to complete converting dynamic disk containing simple volumes to basic disk.

Tips:

Convert to basic disk feature can only process dynamic disk with simple volumes. The other types of dynamic volume like spanned volume, striped volume are not supported. How to convert dynamic disk with mirrored volumes?

More features of EaseUS Partition Master.

For better data security, our free backup software - EaseUS Todo Backup will help you a lot. It provides easy-to-use interface to backup and restore your system, disk and partition in a few minutes.

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