# Linux access to Windows 7 dynamic volumes (striped or mirrored)



## camillelola (Jul 21, 2018)

I'm considering setting up a dual-boot system for the first time for many years. My plan for the system is to set it up as follows:

SSD for both system partitions
2 identical hard disks, split into three partitions each:
1 Windows mirrored disk for important data
1 Windows striped disk for software that's too big to fit on the SSD
1 Linux mirrored disk for important data on the Linux side

Obviously, from a Windows perspective, this means I'll need to use dynamic disks. My understanding is that while the original dynamic disk format is supported by the Linux kernel (with CONFIG_LDM_PARTITION enabled, which probably means I will have to recompile as it appears most distributions do not include this by default) the format changed with Windows 7 (I believe the LDM database is now placed inside a GPT partition, rather than being used on a raw disk) and that Linux does not support this updated format.

Given this, my question amounts to the following:

Is this information still correct? The latest information I have on what the kernel does and does not support is over 5 years old, and I do not know if undocumented improvements have been made.
If this is correct, can the problem be worked around by converting the disks to dynamic volumes using either Windows XP or the Linux "ldmtool" package prior to installing them in the Windows 7 system?
In any case, will I be able to access the mirrored and striped Windows volumes appropriately from the Linux system?

Thanks & Regards
Camillelola


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## blobster21 (Jul 21, 2018)

I don't know. Do a dry run and see for yourself.

A (cheap) dedicated RAID controller would do that easily for you (2 x RAID1 + 1 x RAID0)

Volumes management would be offloaded to the raid controller and performances would be better, compared to a software setup.


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## camillelola (Jul 21, 2018)

Thanks for your reply, i will try that


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