Problems with External in windows 7

[dreadward]

Thanks in advance....

I recently installed windows 7 from vista on my laptop. The external i backed up all my data onto isn't working properly in 7. In disk management I found the drive but it says Disk 1 Dynamic Invalid... I get the options of convert to basic disk or reactivate disk. I tried that latter but it says unable to perform this operation. I found a fix using a hex editor where i change the c02 line to 07 from 42 but that doesnt appear to work either... any ideas?

If it helps the laptop is an Inspiron e1405, and the external is a samsung spinmaster 400gb in a rosewill external case.

Edit: also this drive has worked before the upgrade when using vista

[kakomu]

I think the best thing you can do right now is:

A) revert your hex change to what it was prior to changing it.
B) Hook this external HDD to another computer and see if it works there.

[dreadward]

Yeah i already changed the hex back and tried it on my buddies desktop and it appears healthy and has all the data...

I found this on technet forums:

"Dynamic disks are not supported for USB devices. The help and MSDN say this. You can fake around it in WinXP by attaching a drive to a SATA or IDE port, changing it to dynamic, then putting the drive in a USB enclosure.


It appears they decided to enforce this restriction in Win7. That's a drag, as it will make it difficult to mount a drive from a different machine on a USB chain, which you sometimes need to do to make repairs."

I'm guessing the thing I have to do is change it from dynamic to basic, but I don't have an alternate storage ability to back up the 400 gigs of data before I format this drive into something windows 7 would accept... sucks

[kakomu]

Can you copy the data on to your buddy's computer as a backup and then format the HDD?

If not, you might be able to use a Linux boot disc to act as an intermediary. Many Linux boot discs can read NTFS drives and it may be able to read your USB drive. So, all you need to do is copy from drive to drive in the Linux environment.

Another option is to use a virtual OS, if you have a Vista or XP disc lying around. Install Virtual Box on your computer, then install Vista or XP on to the Virtual HDD. You can read the USB drive through the older Windows OS and then transfer the data to a shared folder on your laptop (either shared through Virtual Box's Guest Additions or using a SMB shared HDD). If this option sounds attractive, let me know and I'll write out a more thorough guide.

[mr_joe]

Quote from kakomu : Can you copy the data on to your buddy's computer as a backup and then format the HDD? If not, you might be able to use a Linux boot disc to act as an intermediary. Many Linux boot discs can read NTFS drives and it may be able to read your USB drive. So, all you need to do is copy from drive to drive in the Linux environment. Another option is to use a virtual OS, if you have a Vista or XP disc lying around. Install Virtual Box on your computer, then install Vista or XP on to the Virtual HDD. You can read the USB drive through the older Windows OS and then transfer the data to a shared folder on your laptop (either shared through Virtual Box's Guest Additions or using a SMB shared HDD). If this option sounds attractive, let me know and I'll write out a more thorough guide.

First try another port. Some times certain ports have power and other don't. After that cop y to spare hard drive or DVD data and reformat to new setting to match. FYI the port switch fixed my error.