One of the perks of using dynamic disks is that you can move physical disks between computers. A dynamic disk will have a status of foreign when it is moved from one computer to another. You will be unable to access any data on the disk until it is imported into the computer’s system configuration.

If you have moved a dynamic disk from one computer to another, you can use the steps below to import it. The steps below assume that you have already physically added the foreign disk to the computer.

1. Click Start, right click Computer and click Manager.
2. Click Storage
3. Click Disk Management.
4. From the Action menu, click Rescan Disks.
5. Right click the disk marked as Foreign and click Import Foreign Disks.
6. Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the process.

You should now be able to access the data that is stored on the new disk. Remember that any time you remove or add a physical type to a computer you have to open the Disk Management console and select the Rescan Disks option from the Action menu.

Summary
Vista supports basic and dynamic disk. A dynamic disk supports simple volumes, spanned volumes, striped volumes, mirrored volumes, and RAID-5 volumes. Dynamic disks provide several features that are not supported by basic disks, such as the ability to span a volume across multiple disks. You can use the Disk Management utility to perform most disk management tasks, including converting from a basic disk to a dynamic disk.

Tags: dynamic disk, vista, windows