Weirdness after cloning a drive

I used True Image 10 (build before this last Vista build) to clone a 40 GB primary hard drive to a 160 GB hard drive on an XP SP2 system. Everything seemed fine for the last week. Now it tells me that System Restore will not work since there is "not enough space on my disk." It believes that 10% of my 160 GB disk is 500MB! It still has 2/3 available. So I then tried to "check for errors" in Windows XP and it "could not finish". What can I do to fix this? And for future reference, how dos something like this occur. When I cloned it, I just placed the new drivein the second drive slot, followed the cloning prompts, and then replaced the old drive with the new drive with the right jumper setting.

 

What could have happened is that after the cloning, only 40Gb of the 160Gb is seen by Windows - the other 120Gb is unallocated. Verify this by checking the Properties of the 160Gb drive in Windows.
If this is the case, one way to get back the unallocated part is to use Partition Magic.
Another way is to use the True Image bootable CD media (make one if you haven't already done so), boot with it and use the Manage Secure Zone feature to create a SZ in the unallocated part. The size you choose doesn't matter as long as it will fit in the unallocated part. Once the SZ is created, go right back in the Manage Secure Zone again and delete the SZ. You will be asked if you want to add all of the unallocated space to the rest of the drive.

 

The properties shows the disk properly. Shows the full size and shows the used and unused accurately.

 

Hello slobizman,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that checking the C: drive (system partition) may require you to reboot the machine.

Could you please create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post? This would provide us with detailed information on the hard disk partition structure.

Then submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

I wish I could but I'm leaving for Italy in a few days, and Acronis support is way too slow (sorry, but it's true). It will never get done in time.

 

Have you tried disabling system restore, restarting your system, then re-enabling system restore.

If i have a system drive that i wish to clone, i disable system restore and restart the system and boot back into Windows before i start the clone process, i then re-enable system restore when the cloning process is complete and i have booted back into Windows with the newly cloned drive.

Hope this helps!

 

Yeah, I had seen that procedure in the web and gave it a try several times.

 

Hi slobizman,

How many partitions do you have on the drive? Is it only one 160GB system partition? If not, what is the size of system partition?

 

Just C.

 

slobizman,

Hm, then I do not have anything else to suggest, sorry.

Probably, there is something not right with the filesystem since the "chkdsk" cannot complete. Try to use Windows XP Recovery Console to chkdsk (with /r option).

Also it would be interesting to see in Windows Disk Manager (right-click on My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management) shows the drive size correctly.