Windows 2008 R2, converting to dynamic disk questions

Hello,
   I have a Windows 2008 R2 server and I want to convert the drive into a dynamic disk for mirroring. The disk currently is divided into two partitions. The C: partition which is System,Boot, Page File, etc. and the D: partition which
is data. The questions I have are:
    Can a disk with multiple partitions be created without data loss or anything?
    I know you have to reboot, but how long does it usually take to do the reboot/conversion before the server is back up?
    I want to mirror the drive to a 2nd identical disk in the server, and am planning to use Computer Management. Do I have to partition the second drive first, or will the process do it automatically?
    The server is a dedicated server that is provided by a hosting company, so I would be doing it through Remote Desktop. Can it be done that way?
Thanks.

Hi,
You can convert the drive into a dynamic disk within both local logon session and remote desktop session. The system requires reboot twice to make the conversion take into effect. You do not have to partition the second drive.
For more detailed information, please refer to the articles below:
Dynamic disks and volumes
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757696(v=ws.10).aspx
Create and test a mirrored system or boot volume
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc738132(v=ws.10).aspx
Regards,
Mandy
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How do I convert a dynamic disk back to a basic disk (how do i back up a dynamic disk)

Hi
I have "accidently" converted an internal disk to dynamic and cannot see any of my data. I want to see the data. I presume I need to convert it back to a basic disk?
on this forum and others the solution seems to be back the data on the dynamic disk up, convert it back to basic and restore the data after. Yet, the only place I can see any signs of the disk is within disk managment.
If I run Backup it dosen't see the disk.
any suggestions would be gratefully received!
I am running Win7 home dual boot with WinXp pro
Thanks, Jason

Hi,
you must backup all data and delete the volumes on it:
How to Convert a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk
To change a dynamic disk back to a basic disk:
Back up all the data on all the volumes on the disk you want to convert to a basic disk.
Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
Click Start , and then click Control Panel .
Click Performance and Maintenance , click Administrative Tools , and then double-click
Computer Management .
In the left pane, click Disk Management .
Right-click a volume on the dynamic disk that you want to change to a basic disk, and then click
Delete Volume .
Click Yes when you are prompted to delete the volume.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 for each volume on the dynamic disk.
After you have deleted all the volumes on the dynamic disk, right-click the dynamic disk that you want to change to a basic disk, and then click
Convert to Basic Disk .
NOTE :You must right-click the gray area that contains the disk title on the left side of the Details pane. For example, right-click
Disk 1 .
Source:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309044
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/26829-convert-dynamic-disk-basic-disk.html
The same applies to Windows 7.
André
"A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code"
Want to install RSAT on Windows 7 Sp1? Check my HowTo: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=150221

One of the SAN logical disk of windows 2008 not discovered as logical disk in SCOM 2007R2.

Hi,
Anyone can advise where should i check to make the discovery work. i have rename/restart the health service folder/scom agent on the problem windows 2008 server. it still cannot discover the logical disk which make the monitoring of logical disk not possible.

Hi,
Microsoft introduced 'SAN Policy' in Win 2008 (Enterprise and Datacenter Edition only) which causes SAN disks to not be available on startup by default, as a protection mechanism. You have to use the Diskpart.exe utility to set the policy of the disks
on that server to make them come up after a restart.
More info on similar sort of thing here.
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Installing Windows 7 on a dynamic disk

Hi,
Here's my situation, I have two hard drives, the first has three partitions, a primary partition for Windows XP, a second partition that I want to install Windows 7 on, and a third partition with 8MB of space which is some kind of recovery partition by the manufacturer. The second hard drive is for data and games.
So I tried to install Windows 7 on the second partition, I booted into the DVD and click advanced installation, the second hard drive and the second partition are marked as dynamic and when I click on them it says that I can't install Windows 7. When I click on the primary partition that has Windows XP the continue button is activated again.
My question is, can I convert the dynamic disk to a basic disk without losing any data on the Windows XP partition? I don't care about data on the second partition since I was going to install Windows 7 on it anyway.
Also, is there anyway to install Windows 7 without converting since I'm looking for the least amount of headache.

In Windows Vista/2008 and Windows 7, in order to guarantee data’s security, their installation program dose not allow operating system is installed on dynamic disk. To convert the dynamic disk to a basic disk and avoid data having been lost, you could try to use Dynamic Disk Converter, it's able to convert back to basic disk without losing any data. Also here is a article: http://strangelyperfect.tv/6415/how-to-convert-a-dynamic-disk-to-basic-disk-in-windows-7/

Duplicate Drive on Windows 2008 SP2

Dear Expert !
currently. i m managed Windows 2008 x64 SP2. in the Disk Management these are three logical disk as attached . But when open windows explorer these are two Z drive duplicated similar size, file name.. . please give me advise .
thank you and appreciate

Hi Viet,
Based on your description, the issue seems to be caused by that you associate a folder path with a drive letter
by using the SUBST command. Would you please open a command prompt and type
SUBST command, then check if there has substituted drive letters.
For more details of
Subst command, please refer to following TechNet article.
Subst
If any update, please feel free to let us know.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Justin Gu
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T410s Recovery Partition -- revert Dynamic disk to Basic?

This is a stupid error on my part, but while I was trying to wipe an external HDD and recover all the space, I saw an option to "Convert to Dynamic Disk", so, I clicked it. It gave me the options of Disk 0 and Disk 5 (external was on Disk 5), but I checked the boxes for both drives, not entirely understanding what the effects would be.
So, when I tried to create my recovery disks and clicked on recovery partition. Now, I'm not able to create recovery media anymore and am getting a runtime error every time the system tries to run the "recovburncd.exe" file.
When I try to open the "Lenovo_Recovery" partition, it comes up as blank. My guess is that files are hidden, but in Explorer, it shows that there are "2.29GB free of 9.76GB".
Being that I converted disk 0 from Basic to Dynamic, I'm guessing that's the root cause. Is there any way to revert this? All searches have been without success. Is there any other workaround?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You can try a recovery software, but I think you have in trouble.
IPnaSh
First Spanish Community Guru - Colaborador ad honorem

Windows 2008 Cluster question on using a new cluster drive source from shrinking existing disk

I have a two node Windows 2008 R2 enterprise SP1 cluster. It has a basic cluster setup of one (Q:)quorum disk and data disk (E:) which is 2.7tb is size. This cluster is connected to a shared Dell Disk array.
My question is can I safely shrink the 2.7tb drive down and carve out a disk size of 500gb from the same disk and use for a new cluster disk resource. We want to install Globalscape SFTP software on this new disk for use as a cluster resource.
Will this work without crashing the cluster.
Thanks,
Gonzolean

Hi ,
Thank you for posting your issue in the forum.
I am trying to involve someone familiar with this topic to further look at this issue. There might be some time delay. Appreciate your patience.
Thank you for your understanding and support.
Best Regards,
Andy Qi
Andy Qi
TechNet Community Support

Has anyone managed to get a 3TB dynamic disk on Windows 2003 Server?

I just got a pair of new 3TB disks that I wanted to put on my Windows 2003 server enterprise x64 system, SP2, all updates installed.
When I first tried to convert to dynamic, I got the error "The operation did not complete" as described in this KB article
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/826823
It says there is a patch, but there is not one for x64, just x86 and ia64
I found another technet discussion here: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverfiles/thread/cb62238c-b3d0-4989-b45a-ae6de6701a7b?stoAI=10
However its best suggestion is to use a product from AOMIE, but I tried that and it didn't even recognize the disk. It also suggests that one needs a better version of diskpart.exe and to try to the 32 bit version. Anyone have any experience
with that?
I also tried creating moving the disk to Windows 7 x64, making it dynamic there, but when I move the disk back to 2K3 it does not recognize it, and goes back to a 2TB partition. I also saw something about needing a 512 block size for 2K3, but W7 does
not allow anything smaller than 1K.

Hi,
During my research, if found the following artcle which also mentioned a 3TB disk should be supported in Windows 2003 SP1:
Has anyone managed to get a 3TB dynamic disk on Windows 2003 Server?
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverfiles/thread/a720ae72-0c04-44dd-94c0-2e6aecce530e
So I contact the author about this issue. He said it could be caused if your hard disk is a 512e drive as the 3TB drives on the market today are normally 512e drives.
However manufacturers stopping identifying this, and if the controller is old, FSUtil will not able to identify a 512 drive but recognized it as a normal 512n drive.
Thus please provide the drive model so we could search on manufacturer's website for exact information.
Also please paste the screenshot in your reply which Satish mentioned if available.
In addition, here is an article Robert provided:
http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/what-would-microsoft-support-do/support-advanced-format-hard-drives-141584

I need convert dynamic disk to basic

I screwed up my hard drive using Disk Management in Windows 7 because i accidentally converted my entire hard drive basic to dynamic. I tried tweaking it around to regain the Basic state, but failed.
Now I can't even boot Windows. Is there a way for me to delete the entire dynamic disk, convert to basic, and start over with the Windows installation in DOS mode?

Sure, boot on your windows 7 media.
When it comes to the screen where you can chose which disk to install to, press shift + F10 to get a commando prompt.
In the commando prompt type diskpart
in diskpart do the following:
1. Type "List disk" All disk on your machine will get listed and have a number.
2. Remember the disk number of the disk
3. Type "Select Disk x" where x is the number of the disk
4. Type "Clean" this will ERASE the disk
5. Type " Create partition pri"
6. Type "Format fs=NTFS Quick"
7. Type "Active"
Now you can Close the commando prompt and do a refresh on the disk selection page and chose the disk to install Windows 7 to.

Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk Witout Data Loss

I think I goofed somewhere and am in need of some advice.
This Windows 8.1 home server had two identical 160GB drives that at one point were mirrored. One of the drives failed but so I added a larger replacement hard drive (Disk 0 = 160GB, Disk 1 = 250GB) and was able to recover. However now, not only
is the mirror broken, but the configuration is crazy:
Disk 0 contains 1 100MB System Reserved Parttion (System)
Disk 1 contains 1 120GB partition where the OS is installed (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump)
Since its much quicker to move 100MB vs 120GB, I was thinking I'd copy the 'System Reserved' partition on Disk 0 to Disk 1 using a third-party utility, but because both disks are Dynamic Disks, this isn't possible.
So at this point I can only think of two options:
Recreate the 'System Reserved' partition on Disk 1 (Is it as easy as running bootrec /scanos or /rebuildbcd or /fixmbr or /fixboot?) > Wipe Disk 0 > Confirm Windows 8.1 boots > Then create a new mirrored volume on Disk 0
Mirror Partition 1 (120GB) on Disk 1 (where Windows is installed) to the available space (149GB) on Disk 0 > Break the mirror > Wipe Disk 0 > Confirm Windows 8.1 boots (maybe I'll need to run bootrec with some switch here?) > Then create a new
mirrored volume on Disk 1
Thoughts?

See:
How to Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk without Data Loss?
Carey Frisch
Thanks for the reply.
I've seen that post, among others, and they all require buying an application. None of the product pages, like the one you linked indicate that a purchase is required. It wasn't until I downloaded the aplications, (and I've tried several) that
I discovered a purchase was required. Really disappointed they weren't upfront about that on the guides.
So maybe a different approach can be taken:
Disk 1 just contains the System Recovery partition - the rest of the disk is blank (not partitioned)
Create a new partition
Copy the OS data from Disk 2 to Disk 1
Update the System Recovery and/or the Boot Configuration Data file to point to the OS that's now on Disk 1
Once updated, reboot
The system should boot properly from Disk 1 and the OS should also be running from Disk 1
Convert Disk 2 to a basic disk
Once Disk 2 has been converted back to a basic disk, can I just do the opposite?
Create 2 partitions on Disk 2: one for System recovery and another for OS
Copy the System Recovery partition (partition on Disk 1) to partition 1 of Disk 2
Copy the OS partition (partition 2 on Disk 1) to partition 2 of Disk 2
Update the System Recovery and/or the Boot Configuration Data file to point to the OS that's now on Disk 2
Once updated, reboot, the system should boot properly from Disk 2 and the OS should also be running from Disk 2
Convert Disk 1 to a basic disk
This is bonkers, believe me, but I feel silly shelling out $40-$50 for a single feature of an application. If I were going to use it regularly, or even periodically, I would do it.
I'm not very comfortable with bcdedit and bootrec so I need a little help with steps 4 in both sections.

How to convert dynamic disk into basic, with OS installed in C drive????

Hi,
I want to convert all volumes of my current hard drive (which includes OS installed in it) into basic from dynamic.
I read the tutorial of microsoft, in which they said that delete all volumes one by one and then finally convert the disk into basic.
So I deleted 2 volumes, but OS did not let me delete C drive, as windows 8 was installed in it.
So now how to convert my hard disk into basic disk from dynamic disk???

Hi,
I want to convert all volumes of my current hard drive (which includes OS installed in it) into basic from dynamic.
I read the tutorial of microsoft, in which they said that delete all volumes one by one and then finally convert the disk into basic.
So I deleted 2 volumes, but OS did not let me delete C drive, as windows 8 was installed in it.
So now how to convert my hard disk into basic disk from dynamic disk???
find another hard disk, backup and wipe the old disk, then use windows to make sure any partitions remaining are gone
windows will automatically allocate the disk as required on a new install
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[SOLVED] Windows Dynamic Disk support?

Hi everyone,
My question is, if it anyone knows how it is possible to mount Windows spanned drives, so I have access to the Windows data under Arch?
I am using Arch / Windows 8 dual boot with 3 drives. One SSD where the base systems are installed, and two 1TB HDDs, which I mirrored under Arch (2x700GB). I then spanned the remaining free space of the 2 drives to one dynamic disk under Windows 8.
I am also a bit confused, because of the different output of fdisk -l and lsblk -f, as the /var and raid partitions are not visible in the fdisk output and also the recognized filesystems are different? Is there a reason for that?
fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3ef29ee4
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 63 1953523119 976761528+ 42 SFS
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x26b87542
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 63 1953523119 976761528+ 42 SFS
Disk /dev/md127: 751.5 GB, 751484862464 bytes, 1467743872 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
lsblk -f
sdb
├─sdb1 linux_raid_member archiso:root 8f0e50b9-5f67-6957-6429-9a74a20600b5
│ └─md127 ext4 7099366d-3527-47fa-9a46-2c261edf1eb8 /home
├─sdb2 ext4 dc38fca1-d656-425d-bee6-7cd40e0c06a6 /var
└─sdb3
sdc
├─sdc1 linux_raid_member archiso:root 8f0e50b9-5f67-6957-6429-9a74a20600b5
│ └─md127 ext4 7099366d-3527-47fa-9a46-2c261edf1eb8 /home
└─sdc2 ntfs Volume 320EE7040EE6C049
Last edited by bisam (2013-01-21 15:06:35)

Hmm, is this for sure? Because I read that some people managed to do it.
I followed this ubuntu how-to http://bigli.ch/howto-access-windows-sp … th-ubuntu/ and after it didn't work, I tried it with mdadm (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=833653):
mdadm --build -l 0 -n 2 -c 64 /dev/md128 /dev/sdb3 /dev/sdc2
Anyhow, both ways let me create a Volume but I am not able to mount it.
EDIT: I got 2 different error messages, when I am trying to mount it:
#1
# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/md128 /media/Win8Volume/
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/md128': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/md128' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
#2 ( after rebuilding the array with switched devices)
# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/md128 /media/Win8Volume/
ntfs_mst_post_read_fixup_warn: magic: 0x61592c70 size: 1024 usa_ofs: 50934 usa_count: 14904: Invalid argument
Record 0 has no FILE magic (0x61592c70)
Failed to load $MFT: Input/output error
Failed to mount '/dev/md128': Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for more details.
Last edited by bisam (2013-01-21 13:05:11)

I tried to install windows 7 in my macbook pro late 2011 but i tried to create partions after it installed and it turn to dynamic disks and ican't access mac or win 7 what should I do i cant format it because i dont have a backup

I tried to install windows 7 in my macbook pro late 2011 but i tried to create partions after it installed and it turn to dynamic disks and i can't access mac or win 7 what should I do i cant format it because i dont have a backup

It's not that you can't format it because you have no backup, it's because you'll lose everything when you do. Lesson learned. Always have a backup.

Not able to create new disk or attach disk to windows 2008

Hi All,
Since a couple of days I cannot add any disk to my existing windows 2008 install.
I have added and 50 Gb disk but is does not exist once windows started (not in the disk management console)
The vm.cfg looks fine see:
[root@nlicm18 1235_w2008dct]# cat vm.cfg
acpi = 1
apic = 1
boot = 'c'
bootloader = '/usr/bin/pygrub'
builder = 'hvm'
device_model = '/usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm'
disk = ['file:/var/ovs/mount/78DB9C7E6B8342C684E30AE500F4B9B9/running_pool/1235_w2008dct/System.img,hda,w',
'file:/var/ovs/mount/78DB9C7E6B8342C684E30AE500F4B9B9/running_pool/1235_w2008dct/apps.img,sda,w',
'file:/var/ovs/mount/78DB9C7E6B8342C684E30AE500F4B9B9/running_pool/1235_w2008dct/stage1211.img,hdd,w',
',hdc:cdrom,r',
disk_other_config = [['sda', 'ionice', 'sched=real-time,prio=4']]
kernel = '/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader'
keymap = 'en-us'
maxmem = 3000
memory = 3000
name = '1235_w2008dct'
on_crash = 'restart'
on_reboot = 'restart'
pae = 1
serial = 'pty'
timer_mode = 0
uuid = '2dcb31ac-3e1f-4f7a-9ad2-af2eef8e51ee'
vcpus = 1
vif = ['bridge=xenbr0,mac=00:16:3E:35:DC:6F,type=ioemu']
vif_other_config = []
vnc = 1
vncconsole = 1
vnclisten = '0.0.0.0'
vncpasswd = 'xxxxxxxx'
vncunused = 1
The stage1211.img is the new disk, the apps disk added long time ago works fine and is visible.
I hope someone can help me out.
Thx,
Ronald

rrademak wrote:
Thanks for your reply, Yes I have already installed the drivers long time ago. There is already and extra disk added some time ago the apps.img disk which works fine.Try changing the disk name to "sdb" instead of "hdd"

Question about adding Windows 2012 R2 Domain Controller, into a native Windows 2008 R2 single forest domain

I current have a two server domain, both Windows 2008 R2 and fully updated. The two servers are on subnet 10.0.1.0 /24
- Windows 2008 R2 Server A: 10.0.1.1 (DC, GC, FSMO, DNS)
- Windows 2008 R2 Server B: 10.0.1.2 (DC, GC)
AD Domain: COMPANY.LOCAL
I have a second connected subnet, 192.168.1.0 /24) which is routed to the 10.0.1.0/24 subnet and I would like to install a Windows 2012 R2 server onto a server on that subnet and make it a domain controller with AD-Integrated DNS and DHCP for the 192.168.1.0
/24 subnet.
- Windows 2012 R2 Server C: 192.168.1.1
What are the proper progression steps, in order to bring up the Windows 2012 R2 server and then add it to my COMPANY.LOCAL domain and then promote it do a DC/GC/AD-Integrated DNS server? Are they anything like the following:
1. Install Windows 2012 R2 server (Server C)
2. Point Windows 2012 R2 server DNS servers at Server's A and B
3. Perform AD prep to extend AD schema to support Windows 2012 R2 domain controllers
4. Promote Windows 2012 R2 server to domain controller (install local DNS service on Server C, during this step)
* Question: Will Windows automatically create a DNS zone for the Windows 2012 R2 subnet (192.168.1.0/24) AND also include the DNS zone from the previous Windows 2008 R2 domain (10.0.1.0 /24)? Or will I need to add the 10.0.1.0 /24 zone to the DNS
server on Server C, even though the DNS from the Windows 2008 R2 domain is AD integrated?

Hi,
Regarding the issue here, please take a look into below articles:
System Requirements and Installation Information for Windows Server 2012 R2
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn303418.aspx
Release Notes: Important Issues in Windows Server 2012 R2
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn387077.aspx
Install a Replica Windows Server 2012 Domain Controller in an Existing Domain (Level 200)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj574134.aspx
Here is an example for promoting Windows Server 2012 to a DC, see:
Step-by-Step Guide for Setting Up A Windows Server 2012 Domain Controller
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/12370.step-by-step-guide-for-setting-up-a-windows-server-2012-domain-controller.aspx
As the server is promoted to a DC, DNS Zones will be replicated and synchronized to it automatically whenever the new one is added to an AD DS domain, bascially there is no special need to add zones, for more information, please see:
Understanding Active Directory Domain Services Integration
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc726034.aspx
Hope this may help
Best regards
Michael
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Windows 2008 R2, converting to dynamic disk questions

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