Bogus info in 70-290 exam

Maybe I am being naive but please explain to me why Microsoft and all the 70-290 books are teaching people that you cannot covert a disk from "dynamic" to "basic".

"After a basic disk is converted to a dynamic disk, it can't be converted back to a basic disk. The only way to revert to a basic disk is to back up the data, reinitialize the disk, repartition it, and restore the data.

This is not true but if you comb Google you will eventually read a billion posts telling you that this is true. Even Microsoft's site says it is true. But if you come into a situation where you need to do this, you would just format the drive and start over not knowing that it can be done in 2 minutes. Some might say when would this come in handy, well for me it was when taking a raid drive and putting it into another XP machine as storage. The drive is not accessible and you are forced to format it. Their is for sure one program that I know of that can convert from dynamic to basic flawlessly, it's called TestDisk. It will convert, rebuild and recovery all data off the drive.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

So if Microsoft is saying it can not be done from their operating system or the tools built into windows, why not state that?

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skrpune

Devin McCloud wrote:

So if Microsoft is saying it can not be done from their operating system or the tools built into windows, why not state that and then teach people that their are open source programs to do this?

I'm not trying to be snarky, but I think the answer is because it's a Microsoft exam, not a CompTIA exam or some other non-proprietary exam. Using an open source program to do what they say you can't do with MS products would probably somehow violate the user agreement/warranty in some way, and they also don't want to be giving free advertising to other companies & draw attention to a perceived flaw in their OS. But that's just my guess...

dynamik

Devin McCloud wrote:

So if Microsoft is saying it can not be done from their operating system or the tools built into windows, why not state that and then teach people that their are open source programs to do this?

You really don't see the absurdity in asking why MS doesn't promote open source programs?

Nice find though.

Edit: I am trying to be snarky... Skprune is right though; that is exactly why.

Devin McCloud

What I think is ridiculous is to think of all the people who had this very experience and had no where to back up the disk...like in my case with 500gb drive full of movies. Now body has extra drives laying around to transfer the data. How many people lost all their data cause Microsoft told them it was impossible to do it. This is why parents should teach their children to question everyone and everything that people tell them!

royal

There's no way that MS could take every application into consideration. And do you expect every person taking the exam to know the capabilities of every third party application out there? MS is tested knowledge on their application without any third party integration. It's great that you found an application to make the steps easier, but there's just no way that MS would ever base their exam off third party applications. Nobody would ever pass their exams!

Devin McCloud

No I don't, but I think they should say that it can't be done from windows tools instead of giving them false hope that it can't be done period. That's kinda what I stated! I guess I haven't seen other situations where this is the case with Microsoft stating it's impossible and their being other programs out their that can do it. If you guys know of other examples I would love to hear them. I was very happy to find that program.

P.S: Yeah, I wasn't referring to Microsoft cramming in more info about other open source programs. I think you missed the point. These tests have enough info to remember as is. A simple heads up like...windows can't do it ...search google for other info would have been sufficient!

RobertKaucher

Devin McCloud wrote:

P.S: Yeah, I wasn't referring to Microsoft cramming in more info about other open source programs. I think you missed the point. These tests have enough info to remember as is. A simple heads up like...windows can't do it ...search google for other info would have been sufficient!

And then people would complain that they didn't say which programs, and then people would complain that those programs didn't work for hem when they tried it. It is in Microsoft's interest to tell you to back up the data and restore after the conversion. If they didn't and these third party tools, for which they have no control over the quality, didn't work they would take even more flack.

pwjohnston

I don't want to get too nitpicky, but MS says you can't resize partitions without losing dataas well, but I do it all the time with gparted boot cd.

Not to get completely off topic, but this program looks pretty sweet. With these features:

* Fix partition table, recover deleted partition
* Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup
* Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector
* Fix FAT tables
* Rebuild NTFS boot sector
* Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup
* Fix MFT using MFT mirror
* Locate ext2/ext3 Backup SuperBlock
* Undelete files from FAT filesystem
* Copy files from deleted FAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3 partitions.

How does this program stack up against something like Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro?

amp2030

I don't get this thread. Are you asking why MS isn't testing us on third party tools? Would you really want that on the 70-290?

Sie

All you need to remember is that for each question theres always three answers.

1. The Right way
2. The Wrong way
3. The Microsoft way

The questions need to be approached thinking that the Windows OS is the only software and how would the Microsoft Marketing Team answer this

UncleCid

I always choose option 3. I do it the Microsoft way, when i walk my dog too. You'd be surprised at what you can do the Microsoft way these days.

Devin McCloud

Amp: Maybe I should have phrased the last sentence better so as not to confuse you. No I don't want Microsoft to test or add more to the exam. I merely think it would be nice to see Microsoft say hey" You can't do it on our software" instead of saying it can't be done in their knowledge base. It's confusing to people who to this day think they have no options. I also wanted to point out that it can be done for those that don't know it can be done and that their are options. Hopefully someone learned something!

pwjohnston: I like Acronis for partition extending. Works pretty slick. I have never used Ontrack...this program is pretty simplistic but works perfect and it's free!

dynamik

I think it's common knowledge that there are 3rd party tools which provide additional functionality. IMHO, if you don't know enough to know other options are potentially available, you probably aren't in a position where you should be playing around with those types of tools anyway.