2 replies to this topic

[Tripredacus]

I am doing a little research project... A user posted on Technet asking about converting his HDD to dynamic so that he could create a software mirror. He may have received some bad advice about it... Anyways, that's not what MY problem is. As I tend to do, from time to time, I will try to recreate a scenario to determine if I can solve it for myself. Such projects have not always ended up so that it is helpful for others.

So I set about setting up a system where I can do the same, or close enough the same, and convert my disk to Dynamic with Disk Management. However, I am greeted with this:

The disk could not be converted to dynamic because security is enabled on one or more partitions.

I then went through Event Viewer and there was ZERO events logged regarding this action. Configuration details:

Windows 8.1 Pro x64
- activated
- upgraded from Windows 8.0 Pro x64 through Windows Store
UEFI boot enabled in BIOS
Disk type is GPT
SecureBoot is disabled

Partition layout prior to attempting to convert to Dynamic:


I tried to research the error that Disk Management gave me, but found only 1 (true) result... but it was unresolved.

Thread on TechNet:
https://social.techn...=w8itproinstall

Maybe someone here has an idea about what "security" is enabled?

[Wonko the Sane]

Trip, is the actual hardware a desktop or a laptop/portable?

At least in earlier versions it was NOT possible to convert an existing disk to dynamic on portable computers.

 

Also, I am failing to see the point of the experiment if you have just one disk connected.

 

Wonko

[Tripredacus]

My experiment was to see if I could convert the disk to Dynamic, and then determine a way to either convert it back or boot off of it. I ran into some problems, I don't expect you to read through that whole technet thread... I ran out of time to work on it myself, perhaps I will try something in the future.

OH! Yes, I did also test on a notebook.

I found from another that Disk Management is supposed to give this message, to block you from converting the disk your boot volume is on to Dynamic. The obvious reason for this is Windows does not boot afterwards. What is curious (presuming it is true) the other guy did not get blocked from doing so in Disk Management.

I was able to convert the disk by doing so with Diskpart from a booted WinPE. These were my findings:
- cannot boot to Windows 8.1
- can boot to WinRE
- cannot run recovery as it says the partition where Windows is installed to is locked.
- it created a 1MB partition called Dynamic Reserved. It does not contain a volume.
- the recovery partition (location of recovery image) now shows RAW as the file system.
- BCDEdit returns errors while trying to recreate the BCDStore
- Diskpart cannot create or remove partitions on a dynamic disk.

Technically, you can boot an OS in this config... but it is the WinRE. BCDEdit and BCDBoot both generated errors when I tried to change the default boot location.

Diskpart info:

Spoiler

DISKPART> sel disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list part

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Recovery           300 MB  1024 KB
  Partition 2    System             100 MB   301 MB
  Partition 3    Dynamic Reserved  1024 KB   401 MB
  Partition 4    Reserved           127 MB   402 MB
  Partition 5    Dynamic Data       105 GB   529 MB
  Partition 6    Recovery           451 MB   106 GB
  Partition 7    Recovery          5000 MB   106 GB

DISKPART> detail disk

Crucial_CT120M500SSD3
Disk ID: {049AE314-4DE1-43A1-A76E-28060A1FB77E}
Type   : SATA
Status : Online
Path   : 5
Target : 0
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : UNAVAILABLE
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only  : No
Boot Disk  : No
Pagefile Disk  : No
Hibernation File Disk  : No
Crashdump Disk  : No
Clustered Disk  : No

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     N   Windows      NTFS   Simple       105 GB  Healthy
  Volume 1         Windows RE   NTFS   Partition    300 MB  Healthy    Hidden
  Volume 2         SYSTEM       FAT32  Partition    100 MB  Healthy    Hidden
  Volume 3                      NTFS   Partition    451 MB  Healthy    Hidden
  Volume 4     E                RAW    Partition   5000 MB  Healthy    Hidden

So it may actually be possible to have Windows 8.1 on GPT booted in UEFI mode on a Dynamic disk working... Sure there would be no reason to do such a thing, but I think it would be very difficult to do it by converting an existing installation.

@verachen, no need for data backup. I can do experiments without this worry!