How to convert dynamic disks to basic disks

Basic disks

• Most of the personal computers we use in our day-to-day life are configured with basic disks and they are simple to use.
• Basic disks are supported by all version of Windows. Using the disk management tool in your Windows Operating System or using some other third-party software you can shrink or extend the volumes and you can also shrink the boot partition i.e. the volume in which you have installed your current operating system.

Dynamic disks

• Dynamic disks are for advanced users who wish to multiple hard disks within a single computer. Dynamic disks have increased performance.
• They have additional features than basic disks and they support Windows 7 Professional and above. But, other operating systems will not be able to read dynamic drives.
• Converting a basic disk to dynamic disk is one way process and you will lose the data if you have to revert back i.e. convert dynamic disk to basic disk.

Converting Dynamic disks to Basic Disks in Windows:

Before converting the dynamic disks into basic disks in Windows, I would recommend you to create a recovery media of your operating system and move the other important files into an external hard drive. Once you are ready, you can use the following steps to convert dynamic disks to basic disks.

Step 1: Open the Run dialog box by using the hot key combination Windows Logo Key + R

Step 2: In the Run dialog box type in diskmgmt.msc and hit enter.

Step 3: Now in the Disk Management window look for the dynamic disk you want to convert into a basic disk.

Step 4: Right click on each volume of the corresponding dynamic disk and click Delete Volume for each volume on the disk.

Step 5: When you have completed deleting all the volumes, right click on those disks and select Convert to Basic Disk.