Disk Partition Disk Operations

There're many operations related to disk in Disk Management before we get a disk ready for use, we need to initialize it to GPT or MBR, GPT is for a large disk with more than 2TB capacity, while MBR disk is for the disk with less than 2TB. Although dynamic disk is rare to see nowadays, it still runs on some server system, so Disk Management also provides a function to convert the disk to dynamic for better managing free space on different disks.

Convert to Dynamic Disk

The conversion is easy to perform, but there are many cautions, check the official guide to learn more.

Note: Please close all the running programs on your disks you're intended to convert.

Here are the steps:

1. Check the disk map in Disk management to find if the disk bar color is orange-like, if not, then the disk can be converted.
2. Right-click, choose Convert to Dynamic Disk...
3. Then follow the guide.

In fact, instead of converting a basic disk to dynamic disk in the aim of extending partition, we have better solutions, try Partition Expert to accomplish the same operation without losing data and converting.

Convert to Basic Disk

The Covert to Basic option won't be available unless you deleted all the partition or volumes on that disk, so, make a backup on important partitions before converting.

Then follow the steps below after backed up things:

1. Right-click on a partition and choose Delete Volume and repeat this step on other partitions until all the partitions are deleted
2. Then right-click on the disk and choose Convert to Basic
3. Then choose MBR or GPT to continue.

Note: Any running programs should be closed before deleting.

More things to be noticed

Convert to GPT Disk

GUID Partition Table (GPT) disks have many advantages than Master Boot Record (MBR) disks, but when there are partitions on the MBR disk, the Convert to GPT option will be grayed out. To make that option click-able again, we have to delete all the partitions.

Then close all the running programs and opened files on the disk, then delete all the volumes.

And the right-click on the target MBR disk and choose Convert to GPT, then Disk Management will reload itself after the conversion is finished.

Before deleting partitions, maybe you can try Partition Expert to convert to GPT without data loss.

Convert to MBR Disk

When it comes Convert disk, Disk Management has no way to protect data but asking users to backup data manually.

Convert GPT to MBR disk, will too, need us to delete all the partitions or volumes to active the convert function.

After you had a backup of the disk, you can right-click on the disk you would like to convert and choose Convert to Basic, then you can create primary partitions and logical partitions.

Note: When disk's capacity is less than 2TB, MBR disk will be just fine, but when the disk is over 2TB in size, GPT disk shall be considered.