True Image-hard drive problem

I used Acronis to make an exact image of my old 30GB notebook hard drive, on a fixed external drive. I took out the 30GB drive and replaced it with a 100GB Seagate notebook drive. I restored the image of the old drive with the Acronis Recovery CD, but My Computer only shows a 30GB drive. What happened to all of that extra space on the 100GB drive? Using Inspiron 8100 notebook and XP-Home.

 

I gave you a nice long step-by-step answer with options for correcting your mess in the Dell Hard Drive forum. Maybe I'll copy it here later if I get time. Meanwhile, go have a look.

 

Alright, here's a copy of what I posted for you in the Dell forum:

"The short answer:

TrueImage8 restored the 30GB image to the 100GB drive. When it restored the 30GB image it created a single 30GB partition and ignored the additional 70GB.

My suggestion:

1) Restore the 30GB image to the old 30GB drive if you already erased or altered the old 30GB drive. If you didn't change the old drive ignore step 1.

2) Clone the old 30GB drive to the new 100GB drive. No need to physically swap them. Just clone directly from the 30GB drive which I assume you have mounted in an external USB2 enclosure. Cloning lets you resize your partitions for the larger drive (see below).

3) Reboot and disconnect the old 30GB drive or reformat it with TrueImage 8's Add New Disk feature so you can use it for storage. Don't reformat it with XP's Disk Manager because it won't erase the small hidden diagnostics partition. TrueImage 8 will.

If you don't have an external USB2 enclosure for the 30GB hard drive BUY ONE NOW. I use the CompUSA 2.5" enclosure, $19.95, works great. You can't do what you want to do until you have a suitable external USB2 enclosure for your 30GB drive.

When you clone the small 30GB drive to the big 100GB drive TrueImage 8 gives you the option of either automatic proportional resizing of the three partitions or manual resizing. I like the manual feature because it doesn't waste any space on the two hidden partitions. They don't need to get any bigger than they are on the 30GB drive.

First, view the existing size of the two hidden small partitions on your 30GB drive using XP's Disk Management. Jot down the sizes. Then when you are in TrueImage 8 Clone Disk, select manual partitioning and adjust the new 100GB partition layout so you duplicate the size of the hidden partitions and use the balance of unallocated space for the new C partition.

If you don't want to mess with the manual resizing, just let TrueImage 8 do the auto resizing for you. Worst case you'll only waste a couple of GB.

Follow my suggestions and you'll be home free. I don't want to hear any more stories about how you haven't bought an external enclosure for your old 30GB drive yet and are trying to swim uphill using your external 3.5" Maxtor drive as an intermediate drive. That forces you to create and restore an image which has no provision for upsizing your C partition.

You cannot resize a 30GB image when you restore it and that's why you have cloning available in TrueImage8 because you can adjust the parttitions during the cloning process - which is what you want to do, no? And, don't be tempted to use a 3rd party partition resizer because once you do, you'll lose the Dell pc restore function that you're going through all this grief to preserve, capisce?"

Good luck!

 

Hi iflyprivate,

That's not quite correct. When you restore a whole disk (all partitions) from an image, you can't adjust the sizes. However, if you restore only one of the partitions, you can adjust the amount of disk space it uses.

Having restored the whole disk which makes the system bootable and the Dell utilities available, I believe, repeating the restore and selecting only the C drive partition from that same image will allow it to be expanded to use the rest of the drive.

 

Since the new 100GB drive has the restored 30GB image on it, do I need to remove this image, before I clone the old 30GB to the 100GB drive? If so, how would I do that?

 

Did you try to restore it on top of the existing 30 GB? If you did not try it, why did you not try it?

 

That's not quite correct. When you restore a whole disk (all partitions) from an image, you can't adjust the sizes. However, if you restore only one of the partitions, you can adjust the amount of disk space it uses.

Having restored the whole disk which makes the system bootable and the Dell utilities available, I believe, repeating the restore and selecting only the C drive partition from that same image will allow it to be expanded to use the rest of the drive.

Wow. Great idea. I never tried that but I will as a test. Sounds too good to be true on a Dell laptop though.

Since the new 100GB drive has the restored 30GB image on it, do I need to remove this image, before I clone the old 30GB to the 100GB drive? If so, how would I do that?

When you clone from the original 30GB drive to the new 100GB drive select Delete Partitions/Data on Destination Disk and TrueImage8 will repartition and restore the data exactly as it is on the original 30GB drive EXCEPT you will have the opportunity to resize partitions either automatically or manually. The data will reappear exactly like it was on the source drive when you reboot.

The short answer is NO you do not have to remove anything just CLONE the damned thing and let us know what the result is - happiness at last I hope!

Seriously, it sounds like you're maybe trying to understand too much of how TrueImage8 does its thing and you're not trying the features enough to build your confidence through familiarity. Just do what is suggested above and see what the results are and report back or ask for more good ideas from everyone here.

Meantime I have to go set up for JMK's experiment. Can't wait......

 

Before I try something, would this info help?

The image on the external, that I restored, shows:
FAT16 31.35 MB Capacity, 1.44 MB Used
NTFS 27.91 GB Capacity, 21.01 GB Used

On the new 100GB drive, Properties shows this as Drive C, NTFS:
Capacity 27.9 GB
Used space 21.0 GB
Free Space 6.89 GB

 

Yes - good info.

The FAT16 partition is your Dell diagnostic partition that you can boot to through BIOS. At startup press F12 for one time setup and select "Diagnostics" to boot to.

The NTFS partition is obviously your C partition. You DO NOT HAVE a Dell pc restore partition so we can stop worrying about preserving the MBR unchanged to preserve its functionality.

You can now resize your C partition as John suggested by deleting it and then doing another restore of the C partition ONLY from your saved image. You can resize the new-to-be-restored C partition to fill the 100GB drive. Or you can use a 3rd party utility to resize the C partition to fill the remaining drive space.

Good luck.

 

OK. Thanks. Dumb questions to follow, but I want get this right. How do I delete the C partition, and how do I restore it? When I run the Acronis Restore Image Wizard on the image on my external, it shows NTFS(C) 27.91 GB and FAT16 31.35 MB. If I don't select FAT16, will I lose that? If I only select NTFC (C), the next step is to select a target partition from:

Disc 1

NTFS (C) 27.91 GB Capacity 21GB Used

Unallocated 65.22 GB Capacity

Disc 2 (external)

Seagate 111.8 Capacity

What next?

 

Target = Disc 1, partition C.
Then resize.

But really, jasta12 - why are you so nervous about this? As long as you do not delete or attempt to overwrite the image you have stored on the external drive, you can just do it over and over and over again until you get it right. You can even make 3 copies of the image on the external drive if you are afraid that you somehow will make a mistake with the image.

And remember - with TI nothing is changed on the disk until you push that scary "Proceed..." button at the final screen menu.

 

I just need to know how to delete the C partition, and if I lose the FAT 16 partition during this process, is that important? I know these are basic questions, but I don't know much.

 

Try this:

1) Boot from the TrueImage8 CD and select Restore Image.
2) Locate your image on your external Seagate USB drive.
3) Select ONLY the C partition and proceed with the restore. Remember, TI8 will take care of deleting the existing partition(s).
4) When you have the option to delete partitions on destination disk - do it.
5) When you have the option to resize the C partition - do it.

When the restore is done, see what you get and let us know.

As Mini said, you'll still have your image on your Seagate so you can restore it again and again until we get it like you want it.

 

It worked!!! Now I have 93GB capacity, 72GB free space. Thanks to everyone who helped me with this problem. Final question. What about this FAT 16 partition that I didn't restore?

Thanks again!

 

C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S

What about it? Check your Disk Management window and see if it's still on your new internal hard drive from your earlier restore. The latest restore should have been of just the C partition so the hidden FAT partition should be left there untouched.

Control Panel->Performance & Management->Administrative Tools->Computer Management->Disk Management

Let us know if it's there.

You do know that partition is your Dell diagnostics partition that you can boot to through F12? You don't need it if you have your Dell diagnostics CD. It does the same thing.

 

The MiniMax, iflyprivate and john team does it again -with most of the work done by MiniMax and iflyprivate.

 

In Disc Management, there are 2 partitions. One is the 93 GB NTFS, and the other is:

FAT Healthy(EISA) 31 MB Capacity 30 MB Free

Does that look ok?

 

Yup. You did it!

 

Thanks again!