I have a drive that was once part of a spanned pair (yeah, I know, big mistake, lesson learned) and I want to go back to using it as a single drive. When I load Disk Management (Windows 10) it shows the size of the drive to be the original spanned volume size, not the drive's physical size. When I try to do anything in Disk Management, it just tells me "There were not enough physical disks to complete the requested operation." I tried using diskpart (clean, create, convert, whatever) with no joy. How do I correct this? Is there a way to reset this drive to factory defaults?
April 10, 2025
Windows 10 Top Contributors:
Reclaiming a Formerly Spanned Drive
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I have a drive that was once part of a spanned pair (yeah, I know, big mistake, lesson learned) and I want to go back to using it as a single drive. When I load Disk Management (Windows 10) it shows the size of the drive to be the original spanned volume size, not the drive's physical size. When I try to do anything in Disk Management, it just tells me "There were not enough physical disks to complete the requested operation." I tried using diskpart (clean, create, convert, whatever) with no joy. How do I correct this? Is there a way to reset this drive to factory defaults?
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I am Dave, I will help you with this.
In Disk Management, if you shrink the span on the other drive equivalent to the space on that drive, then that drive should become unallocated space, which you can then create a new volume on to use it as a normal drive.
Power to the Developer!
MSI GV72 - 17.3", i7-8750H (Hex Core), 32GB DDR4, 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, 256GB NVMe M2, 2TB HDD
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The problem is that Disk Management will only let me create a 2TB volume. But the original span consisted of two 5TB drives, one of which died. Disk Management shows the capacity of the remaining drive to be the size of the two spanned drives, not the size of the physical drive. Everything above 2TB shows as Unallocated, and all options for that unallocated space are greyed out, as is the Extend Volume option for the 2TB volume.
The only other option that is not greyed out is the Convert to GPT Disk, which is enabled after I delete the 2TB volume. But when I try that I get the "not enough physical disks" error. Apparently, DM thinks that the drive is still part of a span. How do I unspan it?
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For Windows to see the whole drive, that drive would need to have a GPT partition Style, because MBR has a maximum partition size of 2TB
Can you please provide a screenshot of the Disk Management window, showing all drives in the bottom pane, and please indicate which drive you want to remove from spanning.
Another option that may make the process easier would be to use a 3rd party utility like the free version of AOMEI Partition Assistant.
Power to the Developer!
MSI GV72 - 17.3", i7-8750H (Hex Core), 32GB DDR4, 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, 256GB NVMe M2, 2TB HDD
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Thanks, Dave. The screen shot is attached. Disk 8 is the one in question.
As mentioned, I did try to convert to GPT, but get the "not enough physical disks" error.
I have in fact tried AOMEI. It allows me to create a 4TB volume (still short of the 5TB capacity of the physical drive), but the format fails, and it still shows the wrong capacity. I can't try AOMEI's GPT conversion, because that feature is not part of the free version that I have.
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Does AOMEI allow you to shrink the spanned volume enough so it is no longer on that drive?
if it does, then try using Diskpart to convert the drive to GPT, then you would be able to create a 5TB volume on that drive.
Power to the Developer!
MSI GV72 - 17.3", i7-8750H (Hex Core), 32GB DDR4, 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, 256GB NVMe M2, 2TB HDD
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In AOMEI, the Resize option for the unallocated part is greyed out. The only option is Create Partition, which just creates an additional 2TB partition, the rest remaining unallocated. If I try to create a partition out of the remainder, it fails because of what it sees as a ton of bad sectors (duh, there's no physical disk there).
When I use diskpart to convert to GPT, I get this:
DISKPART> convert gpt
Virtual Disk Service error:
The specified disk is not convertible. CDROMs and DVDs
are examples of disks that are not convertable.
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In AOMEI, what options do you have when you right click partition to the left of that unallocated space?
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MSI GV72 - 17.3", i7-8750H (Hex Core), 32GB DDR4, 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, 256GB NVMe M2, 2TB HDD
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Sorry, I was offline, does the Delete Volume option work in AOMEI?
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MSI GV72 - 17.3", i7-8750H (Hex Core), 32GB DDR4, 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, 256GB NVMe M2, 2TB HDD
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Last updated April 19, 2025 Views 3,992 Applies to: