Hard drive lockdown on HP 2740p

[yronnen]

Hi,

I have an HP Elitebook 2740p (12" touchscrren). I've created a new partition using windows disk manager tools, but since I had a few hidden partitions (part of HP recovery), the system converted the HDD from simple to dynamic. The problem is that I'm trying to install Windows 8 on this machine (it comes with Win7 pro), and it would'nt install since it is a dynamic drive.

Ive tried to convert the disk to basic using Paragon partition manager 10 pro. It tells me that it need to reboot the machine to complete the conversion, but it cannot install the windows recovery environment which popsup when paragon changes the drive during boot. I've tried to use the paragon recovery cd, but it hangs. I've also tried to use some recovery cd with partition magic, but it crashes as well. I've tried to restore the computer to factory settings using the recovery option that reinstalls windows, but it crashes too...

I've decided to take the drive out and put it in an external enclosure to clean it from another computer...but it is a 1.8" drive....

Any ideas?

Thanks

[jaclaz]

Any ideas?

Lots of them , rest assured.

For the record "the system" does not normally change a fixed disk from "basic" to "dynamic", it may prompt you to do so, and you actually need to click on Yes.

The issues here are several ones, by using every possible way to fiddle with the disk it is possible that you have already brought it "beyond" possible recovery, mind you.

From what you write, it seems like the original HP MBR (the one that you missed backing up BEFORE starting the procedure ) is still there (since - if I get ti right - you can still press F11 to get to the HP recovery partition). This is good.

Now, what have you got available/handy that you can actually boot the PC to? (Like Linux live-CD, PE on USB stick, etc.)

(I need a copy of the MBR "as is" to have a look at it's contents and - hopefully - suggest you a course of action)

Or have you got an "expendable" ( in the sense that you can backup data now on it) USB stick that you can use for this?

jaclaz

[yronnen]

jaclaz ,

You're right, I did get the message about the dynamic disk and said yes, and I did not backup the MBR - but that was because I didn't really care about the data...

Anyways, I've downloaded one of the linux based rescue discs with parted magic and erased the entire drive. This solved the problem.

[jaclaz]

Anyways, I've downloaded one of the linux based rescue discs with parted magic and erased the entire drive. This solved the problem.

Not really.

In the sense that it didn't solve the problem, it removed the whole problem but also the "special" HP MBR CODE and any "recovery" partition, I thought that the general idea was to salvage those before proceeding.

For future reference, if you want to exit the loop in which you got entangled (AND lose all partitions/data ) it's enough to wipe the MBR (first 512 bytes of the disk) or, in most cases, zero out just the Magic Bytes "0xAA55" (bytes at absolute offset 510 and 511 or last two bytes of first sector) with *any* disk editor or -from linux - with dd.

jaclaz