Imaging dell laptop to new 100 gig hd problem

Hello
I have a question regarding trying to image a dell laptop and acronis ver 9.
I've used acronis many times imaging harddrives and it has worked out fine.

I'm having a problem imaging a dell laptop e1550.
I removed the 40 gig sata harddisk from the laptop and dump an img file to my main computer. I want to image over the file to a larger harddrive 100 gig sata.
I image over the drive to the new one from the main computer via windows.
It images over to the new drive sucessfully.
Then usually their is unallocated space which would be the extra space from the larger harddrive.
I open Partition magic to see the partitions and notice 3 partitions.
Problem is the Unallocated space is stuck after a dell partition.

I deleted the dell partition and make the second partition use the unallocated space. Problem is winxp bluescreens.
So I go ahead and hook the hd backup to my main computer.
The harddrive is saying it needs formatting?

I go into disk management,the drive appears but it reads as 40 gigs?
I open up partition magic,it shows a 90 gig parition except it appears to have a problem.
I go ahead and format the harddrive via windows to dump the image back over.
Now the harddrive reads as 40 gigs even though it's a 100 gig harddrive?

Basically what I'm wanting to know,is their something I'm doing,Acronis software or dell laptop/parition is doing to screw up the harddrives?
I've actually tried this on a second sata harddrive different brand and same result.

Both harddrive are now 40 gigs?
I've dban 3 pass wipe,to see if that would fix it,but still reads as 40 gigs.

The only thing I can think of is perhaps that hpa space somehow took the unallocated space from the harddrive? Did the dell laptop somehow write to the firmware of the harddisk?
Is their any way to fix these drives?

I've tried a bare drive in the laptop and that works fine,but you have to do a fresh install.
Any help would be appreciate,because I'm stump to why this happened.

 

Jeet,

Are you creating an image of the laptop HD when the HD isn't in the laptop?
Are you restoring the image to the HD when the HD isn't in the laptop?

Sometimes this causes a problem. Do you have an external HD or can you network the laptop so you are imaging and restoring with the relevant HD in the laptop?

I don't think the HPA is included in the image.

 

Yes I'm creating the image of the laptop via a usb to ide adapter and dumping that file to my main computer. The harddrive is not in the laptop.
Yes I'm restoring the image via the adapter to the new harddrive from the main computer. The harddrive is not in the laptop.

I've done this before and it seems to work well. It just this time it's very odd.

Problem is I've actually tried a disk clone from the laptop using the acronis bootcd to a new hd via usb. That actually work,but windows boot to a bluescreen. Then I tried it again and ended up with a 40 gig hd that is suppose to be 100.

 

"The only thing I can think of is perhaps that hpa space somehow took the unallocated space from the harddrive? Did the dell laptop somehow write to the firmware of the harddisk?
Is their any way to fix these drives?

I've tried a bare drive in the laptop and that works fine,but you have to do a fresh install.
Any help would be appreciate,because I'm stump to why this happened."

Hey there Jeet,
Join the club.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=954149&postcount=13

 

Again the destination HD is not in the laptop for the cloning procedure. TI has to make some "guesses" about how the clone will eventually boot. I know it usually does work, but not always.

 

My mistake that should actually read the other way around.
I had the destination harddrive in the laptop and old drive hook via usb.

 

With your 100 GB HD in the USB enclosure, can you delete all partitions with Partition Magic (floppies or CD). Boot to WinXP and look in Disk Management. Does the HD now show at around 93 GB?

 

I've tried deleting the paritions in both. The harddrive is somehow locked in as 40 gig size,which was the original size of the old drive.
I've tried lowlevel format,dbanning etc those don't do anything.

I google this just a couple minutes ago on the net an found someone who has the same exact problem http://forum.hddguru.com/shot-myself-in-the-foot-.ghost-imaging-problem.-vt6750.html.
I'm going to try to see if somehow hpa did something to the drive using that mhdd tool.

 

I see what you mean. Could you try Partition Table Doctor to see if it shows what is happening.

http://www.ptdd.com/