HOW TO: Convert an IEEE 1394 Disk Drive to a Dynamic Disk Drive in Windows XP

This step-by-step article describes how to convert an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) 1394 (FireWire) disk drive to a dynamic disk drive.

NOTE: Do not convert IEEE 1394 disk drives to dynamic disk drives if they are going to be moved to other hosts. The registry manipulation that this article describes must only be used for drives that remain with a single host.

NOTE: Dynamic disks are not supported on portable computers or Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition.

Convert an IEEE 1394 Disk Drive to a Dynamic Disk Drive

To convert an IEEE 1394 disk drive to a dynamic disk drive:

1. Start Registry Editor (Regedit.exe).
2. Locate and click the following key in the registry:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dmadmin\Parameters\EnableDynamicConversionFor1394
3. On the Edit menu, click Modify, and then change the Value Data field to a value of 1.
4. Quit Registry Editor.

To easily update the registry, create a text file on the desktop with any name and a .reg extension. Enter the following lines of text exactly as they are displayed, and then include a blank line at the bottom of the file. Save the file, and then double-click the file to merge the entries into the registry. To verify that the values have been entered correctly into the registry, you can click Start, click Run, and then type: regedit.

Troubleshooting

• You must not use a dynamic disk on a drive that is mobile. When a dynamic disk drive is moved from one environment to another, the computer can make modifications to the Logical Disk Manager (LDM) data base. When the drive is reintegrated into the original computer, those changes can be transferred to its LDM data base.