[Fix] Cannot install Windows on dynamic disk

When you’re going to install Windows on your computer or laptop, but you can’t select the disk that you want. And if you click Show details, you see below message which means that you can’t install Windows on a dynamic disk.

Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space. The partition contains one 
or more dynamic volumes that are not supported for installation.

Cannot install Windows on dynamic disk

Note: This solution choose to clear any data and information on disk so if you have any important data on the disk, you have to move it or backup to other disk first.

Warning: If you did software RAID 0, or RAID 5 on the disk, converting the disk to basic will break the RAID and you will lose data on the RAID.

To fix this issue, you have to convert the disk to basic disk. In this article, I will use clean command in diskpart program to clear any data and information on the disk.

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Step-by-step

  1. On the page that you have to select a disk to install Windows, press Shift + F10 to open command prompt window.
    Windows Setup - Cannot select the dynamic disk
  2. Type diskpart and press Enter.
  3. Type list disk and press Enter. This command displays all disks on the computer.
  4. Select disk that you want. In this example, I will select the first disk (disk 0), so I type select disk 0 and press Enter.
    diskpart - select disk 0
  5. Then, type clean and press Enter to delete any information on the disk.
    Clean command in diskpart program
  6. Type exit and press Enter.
  7. Close the command prompt window.
  8. Click Refresh to update disk status.
    Click 'Refresh' to update disk status
  9. Now you can create partition or choose the disk to install Windows.
    Windows Setup - Select a disk

References

  1. Basic and Dynamic Disks
    https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa363785(v=vs.85).aspx
  2. Standard RAID levels
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels

17 Comments

  1. Aubrey I. Patton March 28, 2017
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