Help with hard drive installation and disc-image transfer problem

[Rabrrrrrr]

Hope that makes sense.

Laptop is a Gateway, running Windows Vista.

My laptop's hard drive (an 80G one) was dying, so I bought a new 250G drive to replace.

I was just going to back up my data and start from scratch with the new drive - I've had it almost 2.5 years, and being Windows, it's filled up with junk and shit and old crap over the past two years. I figured starting from scratch and clean would be a nice way to go, even though it's a tedious pain in the butt to reinstall all the software.

Unfortunately, I lost (ARGH!!!!) the software/OS installation disc that came with the laptop (but, gosh, I still have the installation discs from my old Toshiba ME and another laptop...ARGH!), so that was not an option. I was not about to go out and buy Windows Vista.

So, since I couldn't just pop in a new drive and reinstall everything, I made an image of the drive on my external HD, took out the bad drive, popped in a new 250G one, and copied the image over.

The image was of the old 80G hard drive, divided into one partition of 70G and one of 10G.

Everything went smoothly, the laptop fired up like it was on the old drive, no hitches whatsoeever.

However, the system still thinks it's on a 80G drive divided into 70G and 10G partitions.

I assume there has to be a way to get the old image on the new drive, and still have the system understand that it now has a shitload more space available. I can't see the remaining 170G at all.

Help, please! Thanks in advance.

[canetoad]

1. Do you have a WinXP disc lying around?

You could use that to format the new drive then stop the process before actually installing the OS and use your saved drive image.

[Duer 157099]

3. I don't think this would work

it depends on how the image was created

[Duer 157099]

2. What software did you use to make the image?

Because, depending on the software, it either may or may not give you access to the unpartitioned space.

There's a solution, don't worry, but need to know first the software you're using.

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. The software is Acronis True Image Home 2009

Thanks!

[Duer 157099]

5. I don't use that one, but here is some info

http://kb.acronis.com/content/2770

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. Fantastic!

Funny, when other people ask questions, I usually go to the website first to get the answer...

But when *I* have the question, I don't think to check.

:eyes:

Thanks for the help! It looks like the solution I'm looking for, and I'm going to give it a try.

[Duer 157099]

6. Well I've looked over the documentation

and I cannot find an easy explanation for why it's not restoring properly. The only time that the situation you describe should happen is if you use the "Sector-by-sectory" (or, "As Is" ??) type of image, in which case it also copies all the empty space too, and then imprints that on to the new drive - *exactly* as it was on the original, so that no free space beyond the original size, is seen. This is like a forensics copy of a drive, an exact duplicate -- useful for data recovery purposes.

Is that the sort of image you made?

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. No, I didn't do that kind of image.

But it must have included in the image the size of the original partition, and brought it back just as was.

Anyway, as I said above, I'm going to try the oher thing yu posted. That looks like what is needed - I remember getting that option, and not sure what to do with it the first time through.

[whistler162]

9. Sounds okay....

It sounds like you run a partition manager of some brand and expand the 70gb partition to take advantage of the addi tonal space or you could create a new drive.

Do this Start > Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management show. It should be something like 10gb 70gb and 170gb the 170gb should be unallocated.
Right click on the space and create a new partition and format the new partition.

Or perhaps there is a switch in Acronis software that will tell the restore to expand to all usable space. You might have to restore the 10gb and then using the switch or choice restore the 70gb separately to have the 70gb partition expand to 170gb.

From the Acronis True Image PDF.

"6.3.7 Changing the restored partition size and location
You can resize and relocate a partition by dragging it or its borders with a mouse on the
horizontal bar on the screen or by entering corresponding values into the appropriate fields.
Using this feature, you can redistribute the disk space among partitions being restored. In
this case, you will have to restore the partition to be reduced first.
These changes might be useful if you are going to copy your hard disk to a new highcapacity
one by creating its image and restoring it to a new disk with larger partitions."

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. I'm glad you posted when you did - I gave yours a shot first.

Easy as pie to go though control panel. I didn't realize that there was that "computer management" path to the disk settings - I tried the regular path, and had nothing.

Your way worked perfectly, and took about 10 seconds.

The main partition now covers all but the 10G.

WOO HOO!

Thanks!

You are a blessing! Saved me another half hour to hour going through the image again.

[whistler162]

12. You are welcome....

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. Thanks, everyone! Good ideas, all, but whistler offered the 10 second solution.

:woohoo:

:thumbsup:

:yourock:

[Duer 157099]

13. (slaps forehead)

Oye. Somehow I had assumed you had already looked under Disk Management

Oh well, it works now so all is well!