Not an over-zealous delete key - merely a flawed concept by MS.  Dynamic disks seem to be a diaster of MS, judging by the EE problems coming in.  If you can convert to a basic disk without any loos of data, do it, but I am afraid you will lose all the data on the drive if you do this.

You can check GetDataBack by www.runtime.org.  Their software can get the data off almost any messed up NTFS drive.  Maybe that is the safest.  And when you get it all off, will you re-fdisk and reformat the drive as FAT32 so you won't have this problem again, or will you (they?) go right back to the same NTFS hassles???

" dynamic disk =   A physical disk that is managed by Disk Management. Dynamic disks can contain only dynamic volumes (that is, volumes created by using Disk Management). Dynamic disks cannot contain partitions or logical drives, nor can they be accessed by MS-DOS. See also dynamic volume; partition.
    www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/serverop/sopgloss.asp

    In Windows 2000 Server, a disk that does not use traditional partitioning, which means that there is no restriction to the number of volumes that can be set up on one disk or the ability to extend volumes onto additional physical disks. Dynamic disks are only compatible with Windows 2000 Server.
    199.247.245.42/afoster/Comp125/Term/Win2000Glossary.html

    A disk that supports volume sets after you use Win2K's Disk Management utility to convert the disk from basic to dynamic storage. Only Win2K can use dynamic disks, and dynamic disks can't contain partitions or logical drives.
    198.85.71.129/cis174/w2k-glossary.htm

On the computer where the disk is connected as slave create an empty directory of one of the existing partition, and then mount the slave disk into that directory. Use disk management, go to Change drive letter or path and then choose mount. If it's a dynamic disk now it usually can be accessed. Before removing the disk from the computer first remove the mount point (or unmount the disk) using disk management.

Sorry crissand,

Can't mount the slave disk.  As I said, the ONLY options availble on the disk are "Convert to Basic Disk", "Properties", and "Help".


Kent

Well if you convert to basic, it will either recover everything or you will lose it all.  

If you have the room, you can normally make a new  partition on the disk (in disk Management), copy all the data to the new partition, and get it off from there -- but, without seeing the details in front of me, it is hard to see just what you can do in Disk Management on that particular disk.....???

As cyber says, Knoppix can find the partition and data, however, Cyber, some people reported that they could not recover anything when they used Knoppix -- they could see it but not get it off.  Any ideas why?  I downloaded that Knoppix CD and cut it, and that is the easy part.  But without any corrupt disks to try, I have no way of assessing its abilities.  I don't use dynamic or NTFS, and have never had a problem like this with data on disks.  Have never lost any data from a FAT32 formatted disk   :)))))

If it's dynamic disk there is no "normal" partition table. If the os on the second computer is Windows XP home it cannot recongnize and access the dynamic disk and consider the disk as foreign disk.

Anyway, converting from dynamic to basic disk is a destructive process, and you'll lose your data.

Try this utility too, maybe it will solve the problem:

http://www.freewareseek.com/utils/1615/

If everything else fails, you can try r-studio, but it's expensive. Try the demo version to see if it can recover some files:

http://www.r-studio.com/

I've recovered the data using Knoppix.  Cool tool!

Many thanks to Cyber-Dude.

Now if we can just invent a way to keep Windows from eating itself.....

Kent

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  If you don't have fences, You don't need Gates.
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