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Recovers all types of corrupted RAID arrays

What is Foreign RAID dynamic disk and how to recover it safely?

This article is about issues with dynamic raid disks, specifically the "Dynamic Foreign Disk" issue. You will learn about a miracle application that can handle "Dynamic Foreign Disk" data recovery.

You can also learn more about the causes of this problem, the prevention of such situations. Well, of course, you will be provided with the most effective and affordable methods for solving the “Dynamic Disk Foreign” issue.

After analyzing the situation, you will be able to choose the most appropriate treatment for your problem.

Article content:

  • The main solutions to the issue
  • Import data safety

About “Foreign” Disk issue

You may encounter this issue if your PC has multiple operating systems installed: Windows XP Home Edition and another operating system (such as Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Professional) that uses dynamic disks that are not supported by Windows XP Home Edition, or on portable computers.

When moving a dynamic disk from one computer to another that does not support dynamic disk, the dynamic disk created on the previous computer will be marked as a foreign disk in Disk Management. This applies to Windows 2000, Windows XP 64-bit Edition, Windows XP Professional, or Windows Server 2003.

The main solutions to the Dynamic Foreign Disk issue

Using drive as ordinary disk?

You can add a dynamic disk to your computer's system configuration and thus be able to access the data on the disk.

To get started, import your external drive: right-click the drive and then click "Import External Drives". When you import a drive, any existing volumes on the foreign drive become available.

Right-click on the desired drive and click on "Import Foreign Drives". After that, the disk receives the status of "basic", it can be split and used like any regular disk.

Using a different OS or PC?

If you moved a disk group to another operating system or computer, it will be marked as "alien". You need to import this disk group at one time into the operating system. Otherwise, you will not be able to save the information.

In Disk Management, right-click one of the drives and select the Import External Drives option.

Next, all added disks and information about imported volumes will be listed, and you can understand whether all disks from the group will be imported. In this case, all partitions on these disks will have the Healthy status. If you see any other status, then not all disks from the group have been imported.

If drives are broken

Then open the DiskInternals RAID Recovery application and use the following instructions to restore the information you need.

  1. 1. Turn off the computer/server or NAS device and disconnect the drives that make up the RAID array.
  1. 2. Connect these drives to a running computer (after turning off its power).
  1. 3. Turn on a working computer, download and install RAID Recovery.
  1. 4. Launch the recovery wizard and follow its instructions carefully.
  1. 5. Select the desired RAID to restore and decide whether you prefer a full scan or a quick scan.
  1. 6. Any of the found files can be viewed for free.
  1. 7. To save found files from the array, you need to purchase a license; then complete this process and export the data from the restored array to the correct drive using the export wizard.

Protect your data!

Despite the high fault tolerance of RAID, there are still cases of disk failures with missing data. In such cases, the best data protection option is DiskInternals RAID Recovery.

You can perform both manual and fully automatic recovery to determine basic parameters such as disk order, array type, stripe size, RAID controller type, and so on.

The raid recovery process ignores all major Windows limitations, and the built-in recovery wizard will help restore data without errors.

All virtual drives can be used as local drives and then use Windows Explorer to browse them.

The application, of course, supports Unicode file names, multi-level folders and many other important and useful features that you can learn about using this application.

Import data safely

1. Use Disk Management tool

As mentioned above, you can return data safely in some cases. You just need to right-click on the external drive and select "Import External Drives", then the existing volumes on the foreign drive become visible and accessible.

2. Use DiskPart

To use this method, type CMD in the search box and open a command prompt as an administrator, then type diskpart and press Enter.

Type:

list drives and press Enter.

select disk n and press Enter (n is the disk number)

import [noerr] and press Enter.

Frequently asked questions

1. Why do I need to import a foreign disk?

To access this external drive when moving a dynamic drive from one computer to another.

2. How to fix someone else's disk problem?

Add the drive to your computer's system configuration and under Disk Management, right-click on the external drive. Select "Import External Drives" and the existing volumes on the foreign drive become visible and accessible.

3. Does importing someone else's disk harm your data?

Most often yes, so it's best to use DiskInternals RAID Recovery to convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk directly for disk access and use.

Conclusion

Almost all methods of fixing the “dynamic foreign disk” error are not safe for your data and you cannot be sure that your data is 100% protected. However, there is one way to maximize the protection of your data—DiskInternals RAID Recovery. You can use this tool even without extra help from the comfort of your home.

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