Windows users usually implement dynamic disk when they need to span a volume across multiple disks. As the name suggests, dynamic disks are meant to provide dynamic storage environment. However, similar to basic disks, if the file system of dynamic disk gets corrupt, it either starts behaving abnormally or becomes completely inaccessible to the user. The present discussion represents one of such scenarios together with Partition Recovery methods that can be implemented to extract the possible data.

Consider a realistic case when you use a Windows-based computer with a dynamic disk. The disk contains important files and folders that you cannot afford to lose. Then, suddenly you observe that a dynamic volume starts showing its start as 'Failed'. The volumes can no longer be started and accessed. Consequently, you cannot view or open the various files and folders stored on this volume.

Explanation

Such instances usually indicate data loss, however, the common causes for 'Failed' dynamic volume are:

You cannot start the dynamic volume automatically The dynamic disk is damaged The file system of dynamic volume is corrupt

User Action

Users need to perform the following action if they encounter a dynamic volume that shows its status as 'Failed':

Make sure that the underlying disks for dynamic volume are online. Return the disk status to 'Online' if they are not online

If the dynamic volume fails to come to 'Healthy' status even if the dynamic disk has returned to 'Online' status, you should reactivate the dynamic volume manually. The dynamic volume can be a RAID-5 or mirrored volume with some previous data. If this is the case, you should bring back the disks containing recent data online or restart the volume manually

Run chkdsk.exe on your dynamic volume if all the above measures fail. The last option to solve the problem of corrupted dynamic volume is to recreate it and restore the deleted data from backup.

At times, the data backup is either absent or you fail to restore from it. In such situations, use a Windows Data Recovery tool. These are exclusive Partition Recovery tools designed to scan and locate lost/missing partitions or volumes from Windows based disks.