How to Easily Repair an Invalid Dynamic Disk in Windows

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Are you searching for ways to fix or recover an invalid Dynamic Disk on Windows 10/8/7? This article explains the reasons behind an invalid Dynamic Disk showing up in Disk Management and provides practical methods to guide you through resolving the error and restoring your Dynamic Disk to normal operation.

What is an invalid dynamic disk?

Have you ever encountered an Invalid Dynamic Disk error on your HDD or SSD after installing a new Windows OS? It's quite strange, isn't it? Now you may be wondering which step went wrong.

So, what is an Invalid Dynamic Disk? In simple terms, your Disk 1, Disk 2, or Disk 0 is a dynamic disk that suddenly shows up as “Invalid” in the Disk Management utility on your Windows 10, 8, or 7 PC. You should know that an invalid dynamic disk is inaccessible, but don't worry about your data. When the disk becomes invalid, Windows may not be able to access it, but the saved data is secure. After fixing the error, you can access and use the data stored on the disk again.

To fully convert or invalidate a Dynamic Disk, you should first understand why it's not working and then choose the correct solution to remove this error from the disk. Follow the two sections below to learn how to get your Dynamic Disk working again.

What causes "Dynamic disk is invalid"?

There could be multiple reasons behind this error with dynamic disks. Here, we list the top reasons that might cause a dynamic disk to become invalid:

Problem #1: Connectivity Issues

• Incorrectly connecting a dynamic disk to a computer.
• A faulty disk cable causing connectivity issues between the disk and the computer, such as a malfunctioning SATA cable.
• Moving a dynamic disk to a new computer without properly connecting it.

2. The operating system does not support Dynamic Disks.

• The current running Windows OS does not support Dynamic Disk, such as Windows 7 Home/Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows Vista, and so on. • In a dual-boot system, one Windows OS recognizes the Dynamic Disk while the other does not. When running under the other OS, the Dynamic Disk is displayed as invalid.

Compatibility issues with Windows are also a common reason for dynamic disks becoming invalid. So, how do you fix this and get your invalid dynamic disk working again? In the next section, we'll provide some practical fixes and solutions to assist you. If you enjoy these tutorials, please hit the share button to pass them along to those in need.

How to fix an invalid dynamic disk in American English:

In fact, the Home editions of Windows OS, especially Windows 10, 8, 7, XP, or Vista, don't support installing on a dynamic disk. To fix the invalid dynamic disk error, you can reconnect the disk, upgrade the Windows OS, or convert the dynamic disk to basic disk. Choose one method and follow the tutorial below to learn how to remove this error from the disk without losing any data.

Method 1: Reconnect the Dynamic Invalid Disk

Resolves the dynamic invalid disk error that occurs because of incorrect disk attachment.

Step 1: Turn off the computer.

Step 2: Remove the dynamic disk from your computer, and then disconnect its SATA cable and power cable.

Step 3: Connect the dynamic disk to your computer with SATA data and power cables properly.

Step 4. Restart your computer and check if the dynamic disk still appears as invalid in Disk Management.

If so, try replacing the SATA data and power cables and repeat the process of connecting the hard drive to your computer. If that fixes the issue, congratulations!

If you've tried all of these steps and the issue is still not fixed, try the following for more help.

Method 2: Convert Dynamic Disk (Inaccessible) to Basic Disk

Resolves issues where dynamic disks become invalid due to incompatibility with the Windows operating system.

If your Windows operating system does not support dynamic disks, the direct way to fix this error is to convert dynamic disk to basic disk so that the disk is compatible with the current OS.

Some may wonder if there will be data loss when converting dynamic disk to basic disk. The answer is no, provided that you use a reliable third-party Windows partition manager tool like Partition Master.

AOMEI Partition Assistant offers a safe disk conversion option for all Windows users. It allows you to convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, or a dynamic disk to a basic disk without losing any data. With just 3 simple steps, you can easily convert a disk to a basic disk to fix the invalid dynamic disk issue on your computer:

Step 1: Install and launch Partition Master, then proceed to hard drive conversion.

Step 2. Choose the disk conversion mode that suits your needs:

• Convert to Dynamic Disk: Convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk.
• Convert to Basic Disk: Convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk.

Step 3: Choose the target disk type - Basic or Dynamic. Make sure you select the correct one, and then click "Convert" to start.

0:00 - 0:18 Convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk; 0:19 - 0:36 convert a dynamic disk back to a basic disk.

Method 3: Upgrade Your Version of Windows

It is devoted to solving OS incompatibility issues, making dynamic disks incompatible.

Another direct way to resolve dynamic link library errors is to update the computer's operating system or reinstall a compatible version of the Windows OS.

If you're using an older version of Windows, such as Windows 7 or Windows Vista, we recommend that you upgrade your computer to the latest version of Windows 10. If you can't upgrade your operating system to Windows 10, refer to this page for help with performing a clean install of Windows 10: How to do a Clean Install of Windows 10.

Method 4: Reactivate the disk using Diskpart CMD

Function: Resolves issues with invalid dynamic disks by reactivating them. Prerequisites: A Windows operating system that is compatible with dynamic disks.

If your Windows computer supports dynamic disks and you don't want to convert the disk back to basic, you can resolve this error by using the Diskpart CMD along with the reactivate disk command.

Here are the steps:

Step 1: Right-click the Windows logo and type cmd in the search bar.

Step 2: Right-click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator to proceed.

Step 3. Type in the following commands one by one, and hit Enter after each:

Here are the commands in American English, as requested:
• diskpart
• list disk
• select disk X (replace X with the disk number of the dynamic disk)
• online disk

Step 4: When you're done, type exit to close the "Disk Management" window.

Then, re-open Disk Management and check whether the dynamic disk is displayed normally. If the problem still exists, right-click on the target dynamic disk in Disk Management and select “Reactivate Disk”.

Additional Tip: Recover Data from Dynamic Disk, Rebuild Disk Partition

If none of the above methods resolve the issue with the dynamic disk being invalid, you can try recovering your saved data from the dynamic disk, recreate the disk partitions, and then save the data back to the disk. Here are the steps:

If you have significant data saved on your disk, you can use reliable data recovery software like the Data Recovery Wizard tool to scan your device and look for all the data.

With Data Recovery Wizard, you can efficiently scan and recover all your data from a disk in just 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Select the disk where you lost data and click "Scan".

Next up, we just need the translation in American English:

"Step 2": After the scan is complete, use the "Filter" or "Search" function to locate your lost file.

Step 3. Select all the files you want to restore and click “Recover.” Then, browse and choose a different secure location to save them.

After you've recovered your data, remember to save it to an external hard drive for safekeeping.

#2. Delete all existing partitions on the dynamic disk

Step 1: Right click on the dynamic disk partition and select "Delete Volume" from the Disk Management menu.

Step 2: Repeat this process to delete all existing partitions on the drive.

If Disk Management fails to delete the volume on an invalid disk, you can turn to Partition Master for help with its feature of Delete All Partitions.

#3. Rebuild the volume on the disk

After you delete all partitions on a dynamic disk, you can use Disk Management to create new volumes on the disk.

Step 1: Open Disk Management, right-click on the unallocated space of the target disk, and then select "New Simple Volume".

Step 2: Assign a new drive letter to the partition, set the file system to NTFS, and adjust the partition size, etc.

Step 3: Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the process.

To create additional partitions on the target disk, repeat this process.