Technical Issues

I Made A Bobo On My Laptop

  • Sumo

I am suppose to be be sleeping now if only I didn’t made a bobo with my new laptop. I can’t say I accidentally convert the disk from basic to dynamic because there was a confirmation and a warning, but still, I clicked the Yes button. And now I’m having a hard time looking for options how to covert back the disk type to Basic without losing any data. God is still good to me because He gave me the solution plus the taking all the risks of what might happen. Anyway, like what my previous manager always tell me, it is just a machine, I am better than it.

Here is the reason why I converted the disk type from Basic to Dynamic. The laptop’s hard disk is 500 GB with three partitions, C(System) with more than 400 GB, D(Recovery) with almost 20 GB, and E(HP Tools) with almost 200MB . Naturally, I want to divide the C drive to two more partitions, one will still be the System drive and the other one is for my files. Why? This is to minimize the impact of malware infections, and other untoward incident in the future. If I need to format the System drive, my files will still be intact. Partition Wizard allowed me to shrink my C to 100GB. Hence, I have around 300 GB plus unallocated space. When I tried to create a partition at this unallocated space, “Partition Wizard cannot create a partition at here. There are no free MBR slots on the disk” error was displayed. I opened the Computer Management : Disk Management if there were other options. When I right click on the unallocated space, there was a New Simple Volume option. So I tried this option. On the latter part,  “The operation you selected will convert the selected disk(s) to dynamic disk(s). If you convert the disk(s) to dynamic, you will not be able to start installed operation systems from any volume on the disk(s)(except the current boot volume). Are you sure you want to continue?” warning/confirmation was displayed. But instead of considering it as a red signal, I still proceeded assuming that only the unallocated space will be converted to dynamic. But I was wrong. The entire disk was converted to dynamic. I was alarmed when I saw that all the partitions were converted to dynamic.  That was the only time I searched  about the difference of Dynamic and Basic.

When I tried to return the disk type to Basic, I could no longer do that without deleting all the partitions. That was the initial recommendation I got. But I don’t have the DVD copy of the Win7 installer used on my machine. I can still run the Recovery Manager but I don’t have blank dvds right now to create the Recovery Disk. I won’t have any other option if the local System Recovery will not work. And if I made further damages, I might need to request for Recovery Disks from HP which will take time.  Now, I am using my brain that one mistake may lead to more problem if I act on impulse. So I tried to search for other option. God is good because He let me read this article How to change dynamic disk to basic disk safely and easily without losing data? So I immediately downloaded the free version of EASEUS and installed it on my laptop. Thank God, through the software, the disk is now back to Basic.

My initial problem – to make a partition on the unallocated space – is not yet solved. But I am too sleepy to work on it now. I might just make more mistakes.  I will just try to solve this tomorrow. Worst comes to worst, I might just extend my E drive. Goodnight for now!

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2 thoughts on “I Made A Bobo On My Laptop

  1. I was just in exactly the same situation as you, but thanks to your experience, when I chose the New Simple Volume option, I didn’t hit the “next” button when I was asked “are you sure you want to continue?” After doing further online research, I can upon this thread:

    http://forum.easeus.com/viewtopic.php?t=18655&sid=890dffda262f9d6bae3da077012ec946

    Essentially, it means that my pc already had the maximum number of logical partitions allowed. I followed the advice of deleting one of the partitions after transferring all the data in it. Then I used Easeus Partition Master to create a partition from the unallocated space and it went through without a hitch.

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