after system restore, new hard drive shows wrong size

barneytoe · 17 Oct 2010

Dell Inspiron E1505 running win7.

Bought a new 500 Gb hard drive. I created a win7 system image from my old 50 Gb hard drive and restored it to the new drive, but now the new one is showing 50 Gb size with 412 Gb Unallocated!

I tried to "extend volume" from win7 disk manager but the option is greyed out. I don't want to create a new drive letter, just want my existing C drive to reclaim alll of the unallocated stuff.

How can I do this? Thanks.

attached disk manager screen shot

c

Arc · 17 Oct 2010

Hi !

47 MB OEM partition, But what is the 3.33 GB primary partition ?

About the 411 MB unallocated , you download Partition Wizard Bootable CD , burn it in a cd , and boot from it . Choose 1 for resolution . Now when it shows your drive partitions , you select the unallocated space and create a new partition there (If you want to use it as your data partition , format it as logical) .

If there is any further query , please inform . Post back with results

GeneO · 17 Oct 2010

What's in that 3.33 GB primary? It is in the way of you extending your 50 GB partition into the unallocated space.

barneytoe · 17 Oct 2010

i have no idea, what do you recommend I do?

c

barneytoe · 17 Oct 2010

Arc, if I create new partition with unallocated space, will it just be added to C: drive or will I have to use a new letter? I just want a big ass C: drive and don't want to deal with multiple drive letters.

thanks.

GeneO · 17 Oct 2010

Dell usually includes a hidden partition with the basic OS on it so it can recover with their recovery CD. It is a FAT 32 partition, Since this is not NTFS, I am guessing it is an image of your dell system recovery partition. You could assign it a drive letter and look at what is on it. I don't know whether after the restore, the DELL recovery utility would work with this relocated partition. If you can verify that is what it is, you could blow it away, it would become part of the unallocated space, and you could extend c: out to the end.

Gene

Kelen · 17 Oct 2010

The status secetion says its OEM.

Arc · 17 Oct 2010

barneytoe said:

Arc, if I create new partition with unallocated space, will it just be added to C: drive or will I have to use a new letter? I just want a big ass C: drive and don't want to deal with multiple drive letters.

thanks.

Hi !
The new partition will be with a new drive letter . As from the screenshot , you cannot add the unallocated space to C , coz there is another partition in the right of C . If you want to add it to c, first you are to delete the 3.33 GB partition . In this case you should follow the suggestion given by GeneO .

GeneO · 17 Oct 2010

Kelen said:

The status secetion says its OEM.

Sounds like the DELL (OEM) recovery partition. Assign it a letter via disk management and show the contents. If you delete this partition you will not have a problem extending C:. Just make sure of what you are deleting and if it is the DELL recovery partition, that you can live without it 9which you probably can if you are making image backups).

Gene

barneytoe · 17 Oct 2010

ok, deleted that 3.3 Gig partition and now disk manager let me at least use the "extend drive" option, but when the wizard launches the unallocated space isn't coming into play. Now what?

You guys are great, I'm making progress at least.