How To Convert Dynmic Disk to Basic Disk without Data Loss

What are dynamic disk and basic disk?

Basic disk: A kind of physical disk which can be visited by MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System) and all Windows-based operating systems. It can contain up to 4 primary partitions or 3 primary partitions and 1 extended partition which contains several logical partitions.

Dynamic disk: It is also a kind of disk whose function is similar to that of the primary partition on basic disk. However, it can split or share data between or among disks. For example, a dynamic disk actually can consist of the storage space which is separated on two single disks. Besides, dynamic disk can copy data between or among disks in case of certain disk damage. This function needs more disks, but it is more reliable.

Why convert dynamic disk to basic disk?

Windows users know that there are two types of disk, basic disk and dynamic disk. Basic disk is the common disk and it can only be named with 26 letters. Different with basic disk, the dynamic disk is overcoming all the limitations. It has unlimited number of volumes, and it can be extended to other disks. Considering the advantages of dynamic disk, many users want to use the dynamic disk to replace the basic disk. However, for many reasons, users need to convert the dynamic disk into basic disk. For example, if there is a USB flash drive which was made into dynamic disk in Windows XP, it can be read by the Windows XP system. However, when you move this USB drive to Windows 7 system, it is invalid and it cannot be read. Why? Clearly because of the different disk types (some Windows operating systems do not support dynamic disk like Windows 98/NT, MS-DOS and all Microsoft operating system Home editions, Vista Home Basic Edition, Windows 7 Home Basic Edition... ). To solve it, you need to convert the dynamic disk to basic disk.

Windows Disk Management has the feature to convert basic disk to dynamic disk and vise versa. Convert the basic disk to dynamic disk is very easy and simple, but convert dynamic disk to basic disk isn’t easy. So, what if you met the same problem as the scenario shows "Convert to Basic Disk greyed out"?

How to Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk Without Data Loss?

Note: In case of data loss results from accidents due to wrong operation or other unexpected factors, you’d better have a backup of your data. To do this, AOMEI Backupper can help you.

Step1. Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant and click Dynamic Disk Converter in the Wizards column on the left.

Step2. In the new pop up window, click Next to continue.

Step3.As you can see from the following screenshot, there are two options:

Method 1: Convert a dynamic disk back to basic disk. Safely, directly and time-saving (only take 3-10 seconds) revert a dynamic disk back to basic disk without losing data.

Method 2: Convert any dynamic volume to basic partition. Sector by sector clone simplified volume, spanned volume, striped volume, mirrored volume and RAID-5 volume from dynamic to basic disk.

Since we are going to convert a dynamic disk to basic disk, we simply choose Method 1. (If you need to convert a dynamic volume to basic, then you can choose the Method 2.) Then, click Next to go on.

Step4. Tick the dynamic disk which you want to convert and then click Next.

Note: You can tick to check if the selected disk contains mirrored volumes (RAID 1).

Step5. Confirm your operation and then click Proceed. Notice that you should tick “I have decided to execute this operation, click Proceed to start, the process only take 3-10 seconds” before clicking Proceed to show that you have confirmed the related information.

Step6. AOMEI Dynamic Disk Converter will notice you as soon as the operation has been completed. Click OK -> Finish to end this operation.

Note: To ensure the conversion take effect, it will restart the computer, so do not surprise by the sudden shutting down of your PC.
If your desktop or laptop cannot load Windows 10/8/7 successfully, you can install this software on another working computer. Then create a bootable media with a USB flash drive or CD.DVD to boot the other computer that fails to boot.

Except converting dynamic disk to basic drive, partition assistant can also convert partition between primary type and logical type, convert system disk between MBR and GPT Styles, Convert Data Disk between MBR and GPT Styles and so on.