I made a mistake in Disk Management while trying to clean up one of my drives. Instead of selecting "create new simple volume," I accidentally clicked "convert to dynamic disk." Now, I can't delete anything on that drive or modify it in any way. I've attempted to use Diskpart in the command prompt, but it keeps telling me that the "clean" command isn't allowed on a disk that contains the current boot, system, pagefile, crashdump, or hibernation volume. The drive in question does have a backup version of Windows 11, but I'm not currently using it. How can I wipe everything from this drive and create a new simple volume since all options are grayed out in Disk Management?
2 Answers
First, it’s crucial to confirm that you've selected the correct disk in Disk Management. After that, open Diskpart and type in `select disk {number}` (replace {number} with the actual disk number you noted). Then, try the `clean` command again. Just a heads up—dynamic disks are a bit tricky and are kind of outdated, so if you can avoid using them, it's usually better. Good luck!
If you keep hitting that error with Diskpart and can't seem to get the `clean` command to work, you might want to consider booting your PC from an external USB drive with Windows installation media. From there, you can access recovery options and possibly format the drive that way. Just make sure you back up any critical data first!
Thanks for the tip! I’ll give the USB boot method a shot if nothing else works.
I totally get your frustration! I had a similar issue with my drives. Just to follow up, have you checked if anything in your system BIOS might be preventing changes? Sometimes, settings there can block disk management modifications.