Converting to Dynamic disk?

Schizophonic · 13 Apr 2009 at 23:24

Hi

I've got a problem with a NAS drive and its developed a fault with the hard drive itself i think. The onboard OS is currupt and i'm trying to RMA it with the company I purchased it from.

However i want to transfer data off it onto my primary hard drive. I've tried plugging it onto my PC and used drive management to pick it up. Its showing as there but in order for me to see it through explorer i need to convert it into Dynamic disk.

If i do this, will it format all of the data or leave how the drive is partitioned?

FaceplantSi · 14 Apr 2009 at 00:20

This is a good read on the subject.

Schizophonic · 14 Apr 2009 at 17:26

thank you. will have a read.

wonko · 14 Apr 2009 at 18:07

Are you really sure that this will let you get access to the data? I'd be very surprised if your NAS used a proprietary MS dynamic disc format (and if it did it would be inviting you to import a foreign disk set). Doing this may damage whatever data is on your disk rather than giving you access to it.
More likely is that it's formatted with ext3 or similar. I suggest you research what file system your broken NAS uses and then have a look at appropriate tools to retrieve data (probably linux based).

Edit: if the data is important I suggest you clone the whole disk onto another drive and then work on the copy - that way you can't do any damage inadvertently.

Bob Wya Jnr · 15 Apr 2009 at 00:01

If the disk is using a Linux-based FS (checking your NAS OS spec) then booting into a Ubuntu 8.10 CD (LiveCD boot) should allow you to mount the partitions off the drive you can't access... Just mount it as RO. This will allow you to see what state the drive is in.

There are various data recovery/file system repair tools available in GNU/Linux. Check out Ubuntu Documentation: Data Recovery

There are various commercial ones for the most common EXT2/3 and ReiserFS. These guys make some really good software: Linux Data Recovery Software - Data Recovery Toolsl

Bob