Wrong drive size

I am using Windows XP with TrueImage 11.

I had a 60 GB hard drive and decided to upgrade to a 120GB. I made a full backup then took out the old hard drive and put in the new one. I booted up with the CD and clicked on add new drive. It asked me how large did I want to make the partition and I told it to make the whole drive one big partition of 111GB in the NTFS format.

It formatted fine and afterwards it reported that the hard drive had 111GB of storage available. I then did a full restore of my old hard drive onto it.

Everything seemed to have worked fine. My computer boots fine and all my old files are on the system. However Windows reports my drive as being 60GB! What happened to the other 60GB and how do I access it?

Thanks for any help

 

You selected the entire drive to restore. The image is of a 60 GB drive, so that's what you got.

No problem! Repeat the restore, but this time only check the box next to the C: partition (not the box for the entire disk). When you do this, you will see a screen you didn't see before. It is the screen where you can change the size of the partition. Simply increase the size to the full disk, 111Gb. After the restore is complete, you will have the full size drive you wanted.

If you had known this before, the trick would have been to restore the MBR as one step and then the C: partition as a second step instead of checking the box for the entire drive. This would have let you increase the size of C: with the first restore. It's certainly not a very obvious situation.

You don't have to do the MBR and First Sector on the repeat restore since they have already been restored. Just restore the C: partition, adjust the size, and you will be all done.

Of course, after doing Windows updates or other changes, make a new image. Then, you can just restore it to this disk, and you won't have to mess with partition sizes unless you want to change it.

 

Thanks for your quick reply. However I am not sure I have it right yet.

When I went back to restore, it gave me 3 options - restore disk, restore disk sector-by-sector, or restore files. I clicked on restore disk. It then gave me 2 more options, to restore, the C: drive or the MBR. I clicked on C: drive, it then asked me if I wanted to make it the active, primary, or logical. I clicked on active.

Then the screen you're referring to comes up. It has 3 boxes Free space before, partition size, and free space after. For some reason the partition size is greyed out - it will not let me adjust the size although I can adjust the other 2 boxes. Is there something I'm doing wrong?

 

You made all the right choices, and you are on the right screen to adjust the size.

You should be able to decrease the "free space after box" which will increase the partition size. You would normally leave the free space before at 0 since there's no reason to increase it.

You can also click on the end of the C: partition in the figure and drag it to the right to increase the size.

 

ChiliPete,

Are you using a Dell laptop? Some of them do this. What size is your new HD showing in the BIOS?

 

If neither of the above 2 suggestions work then here's another. TI will not let you resize a partition that contains file system errors. Check to be sure that there are no file system errors on your original source disk by reinstalling it and running chkdsk c: /f from a command prompt window. Reboot the PC and allow the disk check to proceed. When done, make a new image file and then repeat the restore to the new disk.

 

Thanks for the help guys, but I just can't get it to work. I've installed this thing 4 times with the same result every time

Its a Hewlett Packard laptop.

It won't let me adjust the partition size at all. When I decrease the 'free space after, it automatically increases the 'free space before.' The partition size is fixed at 55.8 GB and will not change.

The only thing I have gotten to work was to make 2 partitions of 55GB each. I can install the old drive to the first one then just use the second partition as a blank drive. I would much rather have 1 big partition but right now I can't figure out an alternative.

I'll have to try the chkdsk option - haven't had time to do that yet.

Thanks

 

Wouldn't the Secure Zone trick work in this situation?

 

ChiliPete,
It would help if you could post an attachment showing your drive as displayed in the Disk Management Graphical view.

Device Mgr/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management
Under the View option, Click Bottom and Graphical View.

It is the graphical view of your disk we wish to see.

If you are unable to post an attachment, is the last partition shown as unallocated or formatted? How many partitions are shown? In what order are they displayed?

 

Ok, you asked for it. Here is the graphical view

 

Thank you for the attachment. As the saying goes "a picture is worth a 1000 words".

There is no space for C to be expanded. The 118 mb is nothing. It is the existence of partition (Drive G) on the right which is preventing you from expanding your C drive.

If your Drive G contains no data, then you must delete this partition before can be expanded.

To delete Drive G, go back into Windows Disk Management and click on Drive G and choose the delete option.
This will cause the space to become unallocated. Be careful to make the right choice of partitions to delete.

Then you can use boot from the TI Rescue CD and restore drive C and choose the restore/resize option.

When resizing a partition with TI, the easiest way is to use the sliding bar at the top. Don't bother with manipulating the numbers associated with the before or after free space. This can all be controlled via the sliding bar. If you need help, check my guide listed on line 3 of my signature below.
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Or, if you wish to enlarge your C drive but also wish to have a smaller Drive G, you could achieve that by still deleting the current Drive G partition using Windows Disk Management. Boot from the TI Rescue CD, and use TI and restore/resize Drive C to its desired size and proceed with the restore.

..After booting successfully, you could again go back into Windows Disk Management and use it to create a new partition inside the remaining unallocated space and assign a drive letter--if needed.

 

Another option is what DwnNdrty has suggested in post #8.

You could creatre a Secure one in Drive G and then use TI to delete the zone and reallocate the space to Drive C.

Secure zone trick
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1044452&postcount=2