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The original questions was asked in 2009. Upgrade to a laptop using a 320 GB drive. When the new drive was formatted it was seen by the system as a 320 GB drive. (Small loss from OS so it was actually seen as about 305 GB.) When the old programs were copied over the system suddenly saw the drive as a 60 GB hard drive. Acronis was used to clone the drive. But once the old files were copied over the system will only see it as a 60 GB drive.

I have tried removing the MBR, I have tried using a different system with a bio that I know will see 500 GB drives, and now the 320 is only seen as a 60 GB drive. So like the crazy optimist that i am a took a second 320 GB drive and repeated the steps. This time not copy only any files until I had formatted the new drive and added an OS to it. Initially shows as 305 GB formatted. Copied old program files over and somehow repeated the process. Now it is a 60 GB drive. The drive is a WD 320. Any help would be appreciated. How do I get it to return to its 320 GB state?

AndreRoberge
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old geek
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2 Answers2

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Though I'm not able to test, there is some suggestion at this thread that the root cause of problems like this is related to the HPA, which is being restored to its old place, causing the drive to appear smaller. The relevant passage starts here:

I'm not a TI user, but I can tell you about the Dell MBR and HPA. This problem will occur when cloning any Dell computer with a HPA. The only Dells using a HPA are Inspiron laptops with factory-installed MediaDirect 2. (FTR, current Dell laptops are shipping with MD 3, which does not use a HPA.)

PatrickR has correctly identified the problem as the Dell MBR, and it will occur anytime you instruct TI to copy track-0 as part of the cloning operation. The Dell MBR (in Sector LBA-0) uses extended boot code in Sector LBA-3. Here is precisely how the MBR works. . . .

I'm not familiar with Acronis True Image, but it looks like maybe you are attempting to restore a disk image from the smaller drive, which causes problems. From the Arconis support forum, it looks like it should be possible to mount a .tib in a running installation of Windows and then copy the files off that you want.

Could this be what's going on?

Community
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dsolimano
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For me the cure was to extend the filesystem to match the partition boundary after imaging to the new drive. At a command prompt:

C:\ > DISKPART
DISKPART> List Volume
DISKPART> select volume X      # (from volume listed by previous command)
DISKPART> extend filesystem
DISKPART> exit

Now Windows Explorer shows the new expanded size of the disk.

Solution courtesy of I Expanded the Disk in Disk Manager but It Doesn't Show in Windows Explorer

Community
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matt wilkie
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