Things You Need to Know About Dynamic Disks
Looking forward to understand more about dynamic disks? Want to know how it differs from basic disks? Need to recover data from these dynamic disks?
Here, we answer all of these questions and more. Read on to understand what exactly dynamic disks are and how you can create a volume on a dynamic disk. Also, this article aims to help you understand how to recover lost files from dynamic disks. Don't worry, all the steps that you might need for creation are included, such as the conversion, and recovery of such disks.
What is a Dynamic Disk?
Dynamic disk is a separate form of volume management that uses LDM to manage its volume. LDM refers to Logical Disk Manager, which is a database that holds information related to all the volumes on a disk. It has a storage capacity of about 1MB, which also holds other information about each dynamic disk, like the letter, label, size, etc.
What is Dynamic Volume?
Every dynamic disk has a dynamic volume that is responsible for managing the data. Approximately 2000 dynamic volumes can be created on a single system, which gives it much better versatility than a basic disk. Both LDM and the Virtual Disk Service are necessary for the proper functioning of a dynamic volume.
Types of dynamic volumes
There exist different types of dynamic volumes.
Simple Volume
Spanned Volume
Mirrored Volume
Striped Volume
RAID-5 Volume
Dynamic Disk vs Basic Disk
Dynamic Disk uses a hidden LDM or VDS to manage volumes while Basic Disk uses a partition table to manage partitions on a hard disk.
Dynamic Disk is supported from Windows 2000 till Windows 8 while Basic Disk is supported from MS-DOS till Windows 8.
Dynamic Disks can expand their storage capacity of partitions while Basic Disks do not support any change to the partition once it is created.
Dynamic Disks support partitions greater than 2TB while Basic Disks caps at 2TB.
Dynamic Disks allow for an unlimited number of partitions while Basic Disks support only 4 (using MBR style) and 128 (using GPT style).
Dynamic Disks can have different types of volumes while Basic Disks have either primary or logical partitions.
Dynamic Disks need to have all volumes deleted before it can be converted to a basic disk while Basic Disk can be converted to dynamic disks without any data loss.
Managing Your Dynamic Disk
How to convert dynamic disk to a basic disk?
Converting a dynamic disk to a basic disk is not as direct compared to basic to dynamic conversion. Here are 3 ways by which you can convert a dynamic disk into a basic disk.
1. By manually deleting all volumes on your dynamic disk
Log in to the Windows system as an Admin.
Click on the Start menu and click on Run.
Type "diskmgmt.msc" and click "enter" to enter into the disk management.
Delete all the volumes on the dynamic disk (Remember to backup all data to prevent data loss).
Right-click on the disk and choose "Convert to basic disk". Your dynamic disk is now converted to a basic disk.
2. By using diskpart.exe
Open the command prompt as an Admin.
Type "diskpart.exe" and hit enter.
Proceed and enter the name of the disk that needs to be converted.
Proceed and type "clean".
Lastly, type "convert basic". Your dynamic disk will be successfully converted!
3. By using third-party software
There are software out there that do convert the disk from dynamic to basic without any loss of data. The only downside is that most of them are paid software. If you're willing to spend a little cash and save a lot of time, try the software available online.
How to create a volume on a dynamic disk?
Another important element in managing dynamic disks is creating new volumes on a dynamic disk.
Log in to the Windows system.
Click on the Start menu and click on “Run”.
Type "diskmgmt.msc" and click enter to enter into the disk management.
Right-click on the dynamic disk where there is unallocated space and choose "New Simple Volume".
Proceed as per instructions (process for each kind of volume varies slightly).
There you have it, a new volume to work with, as your heart desires.
How to Recover Lost Data on Dynamic Disk?
A very important aspect of a dynamic disk is its data recovery. The hassle of recovering lost data on a dynamic disk is second to none. Sadly, there is very little (practically nothing) that can be done using Disk Management and other in-built PC tools. On the plus side, there is specific software developed and tested by reliable third-party companies to solve this issue.
AnyRecover prides itself on being one of the top data recovery tools available online for both Windows and Mac. Its unique algorithm gives users the provision of recovering unlimited data with three simple steps.
233,000+ Downloads
Recover mistakenly deleted files.
Recover deleted items from recycle bin.
Recover files from lost partitions (internal or external hard drives).
Recover files from damaged hard drives
Recover files that have been attacked by viruses.
Recover files lost due to an OS crash.
Recover files lost from hard drives, memory cards, and flash drives.
Supports 1000 different formats (audio, video, images, documents, etc.).
Steps to recover lost data from dynamic disk:
Step 1: Start AnyRecover and choose the mode “All-Round Recovery”.
Step 2: Tick “Hard Drive”, then go to the next interface by clicking “Next” button.
Step 3: Select the file type, then it will scan the dynamic disk.
Step 4: After that, you can preview the files, tick the files you want to recover by simply clicking on the "Recover" button. Sit back and watch it do its magic (tick all, if you want to recover everything. This might take more time).
By the end of this, you should have found all the files lost on the dynamic disk. AnyRecover offers users a chance to preview the lost/deleted data before recovery, you can try it out before the real purchase.
Recovering data used to be a time-intensive and troublesome process, with less than perfect success ratios. Times have changed with the advent of software like AnyRecover. Data recovery has become a simple 4-step process with very high success rate.
