HDD and Clone Issue! Help!

[mike-t90]

So I decided to clone a Dell Inspiron E1705 60GB HDD to a new WD 320GB HDD using Acronis True Image 2012. The image did not take correctly (which I have now learned is a standard issue with putting XP on a large drive). However, my new WD 320 only sees 60GB of space. The rest of it is gone. Acronis can't find it, wiping the disk doesn't work, reformatting is then formatting again is useless, disk manager only sees 60GB of it and even if I go to just image the drive with XP, XP only reads the hard drive with a maximum space of 60GB. Has anybody ever seen this?

 

[fzabkar]

See Q7:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/HDD_Capacity_FAQ.html

 

[Paperdoc]

By far the most common cause of this is that many cloning packages (including the version of Acronis that I have used) defaults to making the clone copy on the new drive the same size as the original HDD. This leaves the remainder of the new larger HDD as Unallocated Space in which you could Create and Format other Partitions to use for data. However, that is NOT what most people want, so I really do not understand why that is the default setting. Most people in your situation want the ENTIRE new larger HDD to be ONE Partition called the C: drive with everything (including a bootable OS) from the old smaller drive on it.

What you probably did not notice in using Acronis to make the clone is that there are menu options you can use to change this default setting. Assuming you want the new HDD to have only one Partition on it (you can make more if you wish), you can specify the size that you want, up to the full capacity of the new HDD. But that has to be done at the time you make the clone. You can't really alter the size of the bootable Partition you already have on the new drive. (Well, you can with third party utilities you can buy, but Windows won't let you do it.)

So, what you should do is re-connect your old HDD, then use Acronis to Delete the Partition you just created on the NEW HDD. Make SURE you don't delete anything on the old one! Now - READ the Acronis manual file to find the menu route for setting the size of the Partition being Created on the new larger HDD. Re-do the cloning operation using Acronis, and use the menus to change the Partition size to what you want.

Just because you are using Win XP is not a reason for having trouble with moving to a large HDD. However, there IS a REAL issue in one such case. IF you are using the original version of Win XP with NO Service Packs installed on your old HDD, you do have a problem. That first version of XP did not include something called "48-bit LBA Support" which is essential for using HDD's over 128 GB. But if you have ANY Service Packs installed (SP1 and up) in your version of XP, this is NOT an issue and you need not worry. (Hence, if you have no SP's, installed, upgrade it immediately to SP3 before proceeding.)

48-bit LBA Support also is required for using HDD's over 128 GB in the HDD itself and in the controllers they attach to. Obviously any HDD made over 128 GB has this feature, so no worries there. Also no worries if your new HDD is a SATA unit, because ALL SATA drives and controllers have this feature. The only problem area is in older IDE controller systems which may or may not have this 48-bit LBA Support. But as I said, that's only a possible issue if your new HDD is an IDE drive, and your computer's controller system (mainly, the BIOS that does the work) lacks this feature.