Not Enough Space Available to Upgrade to a Dynamic Disk

When you try to upgrade a basic disk to a dynamic disk in Windows 2000, you may receive an error message that says your disk does not have enough free space for the upgrade.

This problem can occur if there is not enough free space that is not partitioned at the end of your disk to create the private region database for the dynamic disk.

To work around this problem, use the appropriate method:

Only One Partition on the Disk

1. Back up all the data on the partition. For information about how to do so, click Start, click Help, click the Index tab, type "nt backup" (without quotation marks), double-click the Backing Up Files topic, and then double-click Backing Up Files.
2. Start Disk Manager, right-click the partition you backed up in step 1, and then click Delete Partition.
3. Right-click the disk you want to upgrade to a dynamic disk, click Upgrade To Dynamic Disk, and then follow the instructions on the screen.
4. Re-create and reformat the volume, and then restore your data to this volume.

Multiple Partitions on the Disk

1. Back up all the data on the last partition on the disk. For information about how to do so, click Start, click Help, click the Index tab, type "nt backup" (without quotation marks), double-click the Backing Up Files topic, and then double-click Backing Up Files.
   
   NOTE: If the last partition on the disk is a logical drive in an extended partition, you must back up your data, and then delete all logical drives and the extended partition itself.
2. Start Disk Manager, right-click the last partition, and then click Delete Partition.
3. Right-click the disk you want to upgrade to a dynamic disk, click Upgrade To Dynamic Disk, and then follow the instructions on the screen.
4. Re-create and reformat the volume, and then restore your data to this volume.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: