Brand New Fixed Disk Size?

Hello, I recently (completely) backed up a failing 40 gig hard drive and replaced it it with an 80 gig hard drive. My True Image back up was completed sucessfully and everything is fine, except Windows XP only sees a 40 gig hard drive. after the restore. I'm thinking I did something wrong during the restore process and created some kind of a partition? There is only about 30 gig of data on the drive. I'm also thinking I should leave it alone?? Comments, advice please...thnx

 

It's a very common problem ... search for "Secure Zone Trick". I'll save you the trouble ... here's the link:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1044452&postcount=2

If your system is a Dell with the Media Direct feature this will not work.

 

thank you. Is there any merit to doing nothing and possibly gaining some hard drive speed with data on a smaller partition?

 

None.

It will be just as fast with the full size used, and you will not run out of space which you are getting close to doing with only 10GB free.

 

gotcha, thnx

 

With less space allocated, disk seeks would, on average be faster since the heads have less distance to travel. But you're unlikely to see a diff when running applications. The OS will tend to put stuff towards the front of the partition, so that lessens even further any speed benefit you might be able to realize.

 

OK thnx, coin flip I guess.

 

I don't know your configuration, but IMO it is a good idea to keep data on a separate partition from the OS/apps partition. This way you can blow away the OS for any reason such as testing, virus, or something stopped working right, without having to worry about the state of your important data.

 

littleneil,
You can also correct by performing a new restore using the instructions found in line 3 of my signature below.