Here Are 3 Ways to Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk

“Running windows 10, due to some personal reasons want to change my dynamic disk to a basic disk. But the option for the same is grayed out in Disk Management. If anyone posts a guide to accomplish the same I would be really grateful!”

While doing hard drive maintenance, some of you may find your hard disk became dynamic in Windows Disk Management utility. Or you may regret of converting a basic disk to dynamic disk. Anyhow, now you want to convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk, what should you do?

Normally, there are 3 ways to convert disk from dynamic to basic disk. By reading this post, I guess you can find the best one for you.

Way 1: Using MiniTool Partition Wizard

If you want a straight forward and safe way, I guess you will be glad to know MiniTool Partition Wizard – the most popular disk management utility. Why is it popular? Well, this partition manager is able to deal with all kinds of dynamic disk issues, such as move/resize volume, copy volume, check file system, change volume cluster size, convert dynamic disk to basic, etc. As the best dynamic disk converter, MiniTool Partition Wizard offers 2 choices to convert dynamic disks to basic disks.

Want to know the best part? Just move on!

First Choice: Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk

MiniTool Partition Wizard DemoClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Let’s have a look at how it performs when it comes to converting dynamic disk to basic disk.

Step 2. Select the dynamic disk you need to convert, and then choose Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic from the action panel. Or you can right click the dynamic disk and choose Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk from the pop-up menu.

Step 3. Immediately you can see what this dynamic disk will become. In my example, disk 2 becomes basic disk and all simple volumes on it are turned into primary partitions. But this is just a preview. Finally, click Apply to start the conversion.

Step 4. MiniTool Partition Wizard is likely to ask you to close all other applications. Please do as your are told to let it finish.

“Hey! I just used MiniTool Partition Wizard to convert dynamic disk to basic in Windows 10. All goes well, and the OS is running. Guess you can have a try.”Click to Tweet

You may also like: How Can I Convert Simple Volumes to Primary Partitions Easily?

Second Choice: Copy Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk

Another suggestion is to use the Copy Disk feature. In short, this feature is very powerful, because it not only clones basic disks (such as clone HDD to SSD) but also copies dynamic disks. Please note that when it copies dynamic disk, the target disk turns into basic disk. Hence, you can use this feature to convert disk from dynamic to basic.

Please follow the step-by-step guide below:

Step 1. Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard and select Copy Disk Wizard from the menu bar.

Step 2. Skip the welcome page by clicking Next.

Step 3. Here you need to select the source disk. Just choose the dynamic disk you want to copy and click Next.

Step 4. Now choose the target disk and confirm your choice. Note that all data on the target disk will be destroyed. Hence make sure it is ready for the copy. Otherwise, make a backup immediately.

Step 5. At the Review page, you can edit the partition size before you click Next. (Please note that “Copy partitions without resize” is not available while copying a dynamic disk.)

Step 6. Ignore the “how to boot” information (since you are copying non-system disk) and click Finish.

Step 7. See! The target disk will have a copy of the volumes on the dynamic disk. Finally, click Apply to start the cloning. All will be finished quickly.

“Hey! Want to convert disk from dynamic to basic? Maybe you can copy dynamic disk to basic disk, another way to address your issue.”Click to Tweet

Way 2: Using the Windows Interface

The second way to convert disk from dynamic to basic is to use Disk Management utility, which can be accessed by running “diskmgmt.msc” at Start menu.

Step 1. Right click a volume on the dynamic disk and choose Delete Volume.

Step 2. On the new window, confirm that you want to delete the simple volume.

Step 3. The dynamic disk will turn into basic disk automatically if you are converting dynamic disk to basic disk on Windows 10. (For the older operating systems, right click the dynamic disk and choose Convert to Basic Disk which is now available.)

All is done! Now create partitions on the unallocated space, and then save the backup files to the new partitions.

Way 3: Using a Command Line

The third dynamic to basic disk converter I can offer is the command line, which is preferred by numerous of Windows users.

Step 1. Open a command prompt and type diskpart and press Enter.

Step 2. At the DISKPART prompt, type list disk and press Enter. Make note of the disk number you want to convert to basic.

Step 3. At the DISKPART prompt, type select disk <disk number> and press Enter.

Step 4. At the DISKPART prompt, type detail disk and press Enter.

Step 5. At the DISKPART prompt, type select volume <volume number> and execute by pressing Enter. Then type delete volume and hit Enter. Make sure you have deleted all volumes on the disk.

Step 6. At the DISKPART prompt, type select disk <disk number> (should be the one you want to convert to a basic disk) and press Enter. 

Step 7. At the DISKPART prompt, type convert basic  and hit Enter.

Step 8. At the DISKPART prompt, type exit  and press Enter.

Step 9. At the command prompt, type exit and press Enter.

See the following pictures to get a better understanding:

By comparison, I think you know the advantages of using MiniTool Partition Wizard, which does dynamic disk conversion in the real sense. Guess you can make the right choice to change dynamic disk to basic disk.

For Your Info: Dynamic Disk VS. Basic Disk

Knowing how to convert a dynamic disk to basic disk, I want to share the key information about Dynamic Disk VS. Basic Disk with you. Hopefully, the information can help you make out whether you need to change dynamic disk to basic disk.

1. About Basic Disk

In short, basic disks and dynamic disks are two storage types in Windows. Today basic disk is the commonly used storage type, which is supported by DOS and all Windows versions. When you install Windows on a hard drive, it would be initialized to a basic one by default. Basic disk uses a partition table to manage all partitions on the disk, and contains basic volumes, such as primary partitions, extended partition, and all logical partitions are contained in extended partition.

2. About Dynamic Disk

Dynamic disk is a separate form of volume management that allows volumes to have noncontiguous extents on one or more physical disks. Dynamic disk is supported in Windows 2000 and later operating systems. Unlike basic disk, dynamic disk uses a hidden database (LDM) to track information about dynamic volumes or dynamic partitions on the disk. Dynamic disks provide features that basic disks do not, such as the ability to create volumes that span multiple disks (spanned and striped volumes) and the ability to create fault-tolerant volumes (mirrored and RAID-5 volumes).

Summary

Above are the 3 ways that can convert dynamic disk to basic disk. Hope you can benefit something from this article. If you have any questions on the subject of using MiniTool Partition Wizard to change dynamic disk to basic disk, let us know by typing your questions in the comment section below. Or you can contact our support team via [email protected]. All ideas are welcome.

Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic FAQ