Upgrading my HD... REALLY Bizarre (e1505)

I purchased my e1505 with the cheapest HD (40GB 5400RPM) because I knew I wanted to upgrade with a Hitachi 7K100 (60GB 7200RPM), which i thought would be a simple upgrade...
And as far as the installation process goes it was easy...

I backed-up the OEM HD that came with the laptop using Acronis TrueImage. I then restored the backup (partitions and all) using Acronis BootCD on to my new HD (7k100).

Now for the strange part...
The BIOS/Setup is still recognizing the Disk as a 40GB HD... and not 60gb like it should read.
Also windows Disk Management thinks this drive is 40GB:


Yet the drive properties are showing everything is running fine:


Where did my 20GB's go?
How come my e1505 won't recognize this HD properly?

Thanks,
-BassKozz

 

that actually isn't that weird. I don't know really how to explain it, but think of it this way.

You took an image of a 40gb HDD and then transfer it to a 60gb hdd. That image was only a 40gb, so when you transferred it to your 60gb, it had 20gb left over - which is probably unpartition space.

Basically, only 40gb transferred over to the 60gb, so you have 20gb of unpartition space that does not show up in XP. You should see if you reformat or possibly with partiton software.

You can confirm this by inserting the XP disc and goint to the partition setup. You should see unpartition space of around 20gb. You can press F3 several times to exit so you don't have to format.

 

There is your problem I think ,

I did exactly the same ( dell > 40 gb > trueimage > 7k60 ) but before restoring I partitioned the new HD disk my self ( say about 30 + 30 or 40 + 20 with ntfs ) .

Then just restore data without partitions , you can do that somehow in the manual mode .

 

This doesn't explain why the BIOS is showing 40GB HD, and not 60GB

I did this and it's not showing the extra space or partition at all...

 

Have you tried reflashing your BIOS? It could be that your BIOS still thinks it is on the old HDD

 

You could also use a program like Partition Magic to help you find those missing gigabytes.

 

Partition Magic works wonders

 

Just flashed it... Same thing.

Bios is showing a 38GB (40GB) HD... when it should be showing at least 55GB (60GB) HD.

I used Acronis Disk Director Suite (similar to Partition Magic) still doesn't show the unallocated space

 

I'm guessing that you still have the old partition table from 40GB drive when you restore the whole drive image. You might have to edit that table.

 

And how do I go about that ?

 

Anyone?

 

Testdisk will take care of you. With this you can change your partition tables & types, etc.
It is not something to be played with carelessly. Take your time and learn how to use it before diving in.

 

Ok I downloaded and scanned... It didn't find the unallocated space... so I scanned deeper (it's what TestDisk said it was doing), and here is the output:

Still didn't find the unallocated space

I assume I need to change the geometry of the drive:

Current Setup is:
Cylinders = 4681
Heads = 255
Sectors = 63
Sector Size = 255

But before I do that I looked at the spec's ( Data Sheet for my 7k100 & More Tech Documents):

I can't tell if the GEOMETRY is set properly based upon this datasheet ?
Anyone know?

Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
-BassKozz

 

Testdisk on my 40g looks just like your screenshot. Since it doesn't give you any geometry errors, I wouldn't go fiddling around with those.

There's a couple things I would try:

Use xp disk management to delete the 4g restore partition & reboot.

-if not fixed then-

Format drive and restore just the first 2 partitions with your ghost images.

 

I just got back from vacation, and I finally got around to deleting the restore partition... No Luck

Still shows 40g Hd.
Looks like i have to format, but before I go that route can someone explain to me why the HD is showing up in the BIOS as 40g as opposed to 60g?
This doesn't make sence the BIOS should know that it's a 60g drive regaurdless of the partitions, OS, etc...

Thanks for all the help,
-BassKozz

 

I would say when you used TrueImage to clone the entire drive to the new one, it did just that, partition tables and all.
I've never done a whole drive that way, I always restore just a single partition.

 

After Running Hitachi's own " Drive Fitness Test" boot CD and Erasing the Disks Boot Sector and the Disk itself (low-level format) the F***ing thing is still showing up as a 40gb HD (38.50 GB)

Both in the System BIOS and in Hitachi's BootCD.
I haven't installed the OS (XP MCE) yet, because I want to make sure my disk is working to its full potential before I re-install the OS.

Is there something I am missing ?
I've wiped the disk completly yet it's still not showing it's full 60GB Size...
Now I know never to restore a complete disk with Acronis

Any Idea's on what to try next?

 

Nevermind,
I think I figured it out... I ran another BootCD from Hitachi Called " Feature Tool" and that let me reset the drives capacity...
And to think I prolly could have just ran this all along (with out having to low-level format )... I think I've got it now.
Thanks for the help,
-BassKozz