Restoring system image to larger hard drive

[codad]

When I replaced my hard drive to go from 160 GB to 500 GB, I restored a system image in Windows 7 from an external drive. Now the new drive works great, but windows still reports it as having approx 160 GB. In the BIOS setup it recognizes it as 500 GB. It there a way to have Windows recognize the whole thing, or is there another partition that I can't see?

Thanks

 

[Lemur]

I believe you will find unallocated disk space. Please refer to the following:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2670-partition-volume-extend.html

 

[codad]

combining partitions

Thanks for the info. I did find unallocated space, but I can't extend the original partition to make one large partition because it is a boot partition.

Does anyone have experience with some third party software that can combine the partitions so I have one C: drive that is approx 500 GB?

Also, Microsoft touts their system image program as good for moving one's entire hard drive to a new one. Why isn't it possible to create one large partition on the new drive--I imagine most people would be upgrading to a larger capacity hard drive when a replacement is necessary.

 

[Lemur]

Easeus Partition Master Home Edition - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com