Hard drive disk size smaller than labeled - 320GB drive contains only 60GB

Question

I worked on a computer for a family member and got them a larger hard drive, going from 60GB to 320GB. I used Acronis True Image to copy the disk, and since I didn't have a USB enclosure for the bare drive I backed up the information in a .tib file to another USB drive that I had. After restoring the backup, the 320GB drive shows in Windows as a 60GB drive.

To remedy this, I've tried:

• Using the Disk Management tool to resize the partition; only one 60GB partition is visible, with no other volumes or empty space available
• Checking for volume shadow copies
• Making sure I didn't put the original drive back in :)
• Formatting drive before restoring backup
• Shredding the drive to remove any remnants of MBR, etc.

Every time, the drive shows up again as 60GB. I should also note that when the drive was first installed, it showed up as a 320GB drive, but has not done so since.

Fortunately, all the data is fine, but only a small portion of the drive is available. The main constraint is that I don't want to reinstall the applications - some of them (Libronix for one) are rather finicky and she had a nightmare getting them back onto the system last time she rebuilt. Any recommendations as to what I should do next?

Answer 1

You might want to completely wipe and test the disk with special tools from the brand of the hard disk, that will ensure that you will see the right information. If that doesn't help, the hard drive either has a wrong sticker or is providing the wrong information.

Answer 2

I would assume that this is because partition table was copied from old drive also. There should be option during restore which will allow disk to expand. Since I do not have Acronis near me, I cannot say exact name of that option.

Additionally, you can try Extend Volume option in Disk Management (Vista and above) or something like Partition Magic.

Answer 3

Have you tried updating the BIOS for the motheroard? It's a pretty common problem with old BIOS versions, that larger drives aren't recognized correctly.

Answer 4

You might find that a tool like the gparted live cd will let you resize your partition to fill the disk. Alternatively your imaging software might have an option for resizing the partition during the restore.

Answer 5

i doubt it is the BIOS, since the drive has been recognized before.

if you still have the original drive, the run Active@Killdisk or DBAN over the new drive and delete anything that's on it, then check the drive again.

i'm not using Acronis (no match for Symantec Ghost Enterprise, sry :) but i suppose you didn't set the destination drive parameters correctly when cloning the drive.

Answer 6

If you did a image of the entire old disk this most likely include partition table as well, so the copy of your partition need be resized. There are different ways to do so, like ppl already mentioned either at restore with image software or with apps like Partition Magic, GParted etc

Inside the Disk Management tool (My Computer->Manage->Disk Management) you can see usage of your harddisk, and also rezise in the more recent windows (win7)

Answer 7

We had the same problem with a Dell 6400 with Media Direct. It was a problem with HPA (host protected area) on the harddrive. In this case, it was the Media Direct hidden partition in the HPA that we cloned over to the new bigger hard drive. What a night mare. We were able to get rid of the HPA and then set the drive to the full size and copy over only the partitions we wanted. See these sites for info and tools. We used HDAT2 tool.

Search wikipedia for Host Protected Area (good info and tools)http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/mediadirect.htm

Answer 8

It's not clear from this whether you have checked in the disk manager whether you actually have a 60gb partition on a 320gb drive or whether Windows sees it as 60gb. Since the new size matches the old I strongly suspect that's what happened. You need to resize the partition to use all the space. I think Acronis can do this. Note that XP at least can't do it by itself.

Other than that there's the possibility of the BIOS not recognizing the drive properly--if that's the issue, flash it. It's also possible you are dealing with an old controller. There's no fix other than replacing the controller in this case (when drives started breaking this wall you found a lot of retail drives packed with a controller card) but my impression is that this would give you 137gb, not 60gb. I've only hit it once and that's what it did--the 160gb drive reported as 137gb.

Answer 9

In the Acronis software, you will have to play with the partition sizes. You must boot from the Acronis CD and before you lay down the image, you should be able to use up all 320GB ( I forget which step this is). I ran into this problem a few months back. Acronis isn't smart enough to realize that it is placing the image on a larger harddrive, you have to tell it.