Dynamic Disk Invalid

Hi
Thanks for this advice that I have followed using HxD that has partly solved the problem I have with trying to activate an invalid disk with 2 partitions insofar as when I followed the procedure only one of the partitions became active and the other partition remained invisible. Any suggestion about what I need to do to remedy this most welcome.

Here is the status of my current system:

1) HxD shows 2 physical drives "hard disk 1" and "hard disk 2"
My invalid HD "hard disk 2" has two partitions
2) I use HxD to change the 42 to 07, save, exit and reboot the HD
3) One of the 2 partitions opens normally, the other partition is invisible
4) Used HxD to change the 07 back to 42, save, exit and reboot .... back to where I started.

So not sure what to do?

Question: Is this problem caused by switching my OS from XP to Win7. I ask since if this is true and nobody can advise how to solve my problem I reckon I should be able to find another computer with XP, hook up and back up my "invalid" external HD that hopefully will run as normal on any computer with XP as it used to do before, then once back is done reformat my external harddrive with my Win7 system, right?

bdonk you're my savior
I've just installed a 3TB HD and suddenly one of my 1TB HD's was invalid and dynamic for some reason.
The HD was kinda full so I didn't wanted to loose the data on it.
A quick search on the net found this article and it fixed it straight away.

Just registered to say my thanks for this awesome solution.

PS: in my compmgtm it stated disk0 btw but in HxD it was Disk1 (Disk0 was not visibile, only Disk1 till Disk5)

hi there,

just downloaded the program HXD but got stuck )o; Really desperate due I have important data on the hard disk.
I just pulled out our 100 GB HD of our old computer and bought a external Storage case.
If I connect it to our Win7 notebook via USB 2.0 the same error appears in the disk manager invalid dynamic disk - option reactivate is not possible...

I don't know how to proceed with HXD . After opening it I can just open the USB HD because I can not find it. The only place I can see it at all is in the disk manager as invalid dynamic disk...

Please help....
Thanks
sven

really thanks ! i solved this problem perfectly by your method.

appreciate you.

I have the same problem as lowep! help!
I changed the hex value from 42 to 07 on hard disk 2. But the problem was that i had partitioned my external HDD of 1TB
into roughly 500 gb each. After i changed the values with HxD, only one partition was recovered and shows up in my computer the other is invisible.
Anybody know how to fix this issue?

Originally Posted by lowep

Hi
Thanks for this advice that I have followed using HxD that has partly solved the problem I have with trying to activate an invalid disk with 2 partitions insofar as when I followed the procedure only one of the partitions became active and the other partition remained invisible. Any suggestion about what I need to do to remedy this most welcome.

Here is the status of my current system:

1) HxD shows 2 physical drives "hard disk 1" and "hard disk 2"
My invalid HD "hard disk 2" has two partitions
2) I use HxD to change the 42 to 07, save, exit and reboot the HD
3) One of the 2 partitions opens normally, the other partition is invisible
4) Used HxD to change the 07 back to 42, save, exit and reboot .... back to where I started.

So not sure what to do?

Question: Is this problem caused by switching my OS from XP to Win7. I ask since if this is true and nobody can advise how to solve my problem I reckon I should be able to find another computer with XP, hook up and back up my "invalid" external HD that hopefully will run as normal on any computer with XP as it used to do before, then once back is done reformat my external harddrive with my Win7 system, right?

Plug the drive into a Linux machine and it reads it with no problem whatsoever!!! (Windows 7 Pro refused to read it.)

Background : I was experimenting with Dynamic disks as part of my WHS 2011 setup. I created a 2-disk mirror to save all my pictures, music and home videos and wanted to make sure that I could read the remaining drive if one failed.

So before the server went 'live', I copied some test files over, shut down the machine, pulled out one of the drives in the mirror and plugged it into my Win7 laptop using a USB dock. Sure enough it was marked as 'Dynamic - invalid' in Disk Manager and unreadable.

Checked the forums (which brought me here) and was about to try some of the suggestions but then on a hunch I plugged the drive into my Linux box. Everything on the disk was immediately accessible, no questions asked. Hats off the guys and gals at Ubuntu.

For those who may be wondering - on completion of this experiment, I plugged the drive back into the WHS box and the mirrored volume showed up as 'Healthy'.

Registered just to post this info, hope it helps someone down the line.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! This saved a lot of data!

Originally Posted by bdonk

I've been using Windows 7 for a while now but all the sudden I'm having an issue with one of my Hard Drives. I have a 320gig SATA as my primary system drive, a 500gig SATA data drive (this one is set to 'dynamic') and then an 120gig ATA drive (That I currently have no data on yet.)

For a couple of months now all was fine. My primary drive was assigned the letter C: (durr,) the 500gig was set to G: and the ATA was set to D:.

I have all of my music and stuff on my big drive, the 'dynamic' one. So I turn on my computer and click a shortcut to my music on my desktop and I get a message saying the link has no target, so I open My Computer and lo and behold, G: is gone. I go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management and I see:

"Disk 0, (D) basic, healthy, primary partition"
"Disk 1, (C) basic, healthy, primary partition"
"Disk 2, (supposed to be G), dynamic, invalid"

When I right-click on it, I get the option to 'convert to basic disk' (lose all data on it,) or 'reactivate disk.' Selecting the latter option gives me the error "This operation is not allowed on the invalid disk pack."

Properties reports the device is working properly, my bios sees the drive as well...???
There is a tiny white bubble with a red down-facing arrow over the drive icon there too that's looking kind of bad...

Please help!

!!!FIXED!!!

I downloaded HxD, a disk hex editor and opened the disk in it. In sector 0, location 1C2, the value read "42." This means dynamic drive, so I changed the value to "07" and saved the changes and rebooted.

Upon reboot I went back to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management and there it was, no longer 'invalid' but instead said 'healthy, NTFS, basic.' Glee!

I had to reboot again though for some reason because I was unable to change the drive's name (not path, just name) and also the drive was not appearing on the left in my library's window. After a 2nd reboot though it was back to the way it was and the disk is no longer dynamic.

I thought this was odd to begin with though because I used Windows7 to make that drive dynamic in the first place, so I have no idea as to why it would suddenly lose support for dynamic disks

Oh well, I'm happy.

For anybody that may be having the same issue, here's the link to the fix and the app: Convert Dynamic Disk back to Basic Disk without data loss - Wilders Security Forums

Have followed all this with a similar problem and section 0 code at 1C2 reads EE, not 42 and have no idea what this means.
In device properties it indicates type dynamic and status invalid, partition style GUID Partition Table (GPT).
It is tempting just to change EE to 07 but am not sure. Your help deeply appreciated.
Thanks heaps.
This is re a Hitachi 500gb drive on a Win 7 HP 64bit setup. On a USB connection at present.

I did not get a comment but in case someone has similar issue with EE I bit the bullet replaced with 07 and bingo all OK.
But could not save data as could only do a format which was not an issue as all files on the HDD had been backed up.
So now have reinstalled and back to normal.
Trust helps someone.