Dell Laptop Hardrive Upgrade Issue

Hi all...Hopefully someone can give me some advise. I have a dell xps laptop that is about 6 years old. It can with a 40G hardrive and I recently purchased a 320G. I contacted dell to make sure that I could use a 320 in it and they said yes. I tried using True Image, ghost and they both said that the image completed with a total of 320G of space, after a reboot it only sees 40G. I flashed the Bios to the updated version, with no change. I used a Partian software to see if it would find the other space...still nothing. I took it to comp usa, paid them 100.00 with the same result..

Is there anything else I can try to get the laptop to see the rest of the new hardrive?

Thank you!!

 

Hi

A few questions... what version of Windows are you running? Also, is the drive formatted NTFS?

 

Thank you ....I am running window xp, ntfs..

 

Okay, click Start, and then click Control Panel. Click Performance and Maintenance, click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.

Then, in the console tree (left side), expand Storage, and find the hard drive listed. You should be able to see if there's unallocated space... please tell me what you see. Or you can simply take a screenshot of it (simply press the Print Screen button on your keyboard, which automatically takes a screenshot and saves it to the clipboard), use MS Paint (ctrl+v to paste the screenshot in) to cut out the portion of the screenshot showing the drive, and save it and upload it as an attachment to your post.

To attach it to your post, click the Go Advanced button, scroll down and find the Manage Attachments button, click it, use the first Browse... button to find the picture, click the Upload button, and once it's uploaded, you can close the attachments window and continue your post normally.

EDIT: Bedtime where I'm at, but if no one else helps you I'll be back on tomorrow to help.

 

Thank you again...It looked like it uploaded..


.

 

In the same window you just took a picture of can you right click Disk 0 in the graph and select Properties. What is the model number of the drive shown next to the HD icon in the Properties window that opens?

(Ignore my lack of Paint skills, I'm not on my regular PC and miss my Snagit program)

 

Hello,
Not sure if this is your problem but if you have Dell Media Direct, this problem can occur.

HPA Problems When Upgrading Hard Disk

A person had this problem with acronis. Post #77

Also here.

You will have to create a bootable CD of HDAT2. Hopefully sach2 can help with that.

Latest version of HDAT2 is 4.8

 

Wdcwd3200beve-00a0ht0

 

It looks like tgell found your problem.

I'll have to read up on the solution. I'm unclear if a new clone is necessary after HDAT2.

Did the laptop come with recovery discs or just the recovery partition? If you don't need the recovery partition then the fix is fairly simple rewrite the MBR on the original HD and reclone.

If you need/want the recovery partition (probably a good idea) I'll read up on the problem and try to get a definitive procedure. I've never seen this problem or the tools for fixing it.

 

Seagates tool will copy both partitions, to a different size hard drive, and expand/contract the parttitions in propertion. So, if you have difficulties with HDAT2- (I have not used HDAT2, mtself)
I have used it to copy a hard drive with 9 partitions, from 1+1/2 tb to a 1tb hard drive, as well as smaller dives, and it has worked successfully with the recovery partion copied as well.
You can download from majorgeeks, or, from Seagate support. (disc wizard)
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=d9fd4a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

 

I see there are various Segate tools- I mean specifaically Seagate Disc Wizard

 

Thanks all for the assistance...I am still trying to figure this one out. The seagate tools may work, but if you dont have a seagate hardrive, it will not completly start the program. "You must have at least one seagate product". Mine is a WD.

I tried using the HDAT tool, but I dont know which one? Do I have to copy this to a CD then boot at start up?

Thank u again...

 

Sorry,I have not really looked at the problem. I have had very intermittent internet the last few days and little satisfaction from Verizon.

I don't thing Seagate can help you because it is copying the Dell MBR that causes the problem. The Dell MBR also makes using the factory restore partition possible. Not copying the Dell MBR will allow you to see the entire HD but will leave the factory restore partition inaccessible.

So HDAT2 seems to be the workaround to fixing the size problem while still allowing access to the restore partition. (There may actually be need for a second fix to tell the Dell MBR where the factory restore partition begins on the larger HD.)

I guess the first question is do you need to keep your factory restore partition functioning or did Dell provide you with CDs to reinstall the Operating System when necessary?

This is the very long thread that I intend to read to clarify what the best way ahead is. The member DG1261 is the person who has done all the research and understands the problem best and has figured out the fixes. He just is a real geek and isn't all that good at giving step by step instructions. I am going to read through the thread and see what I think is the best way forward. You still have the old HD if you need to do a new clone which may be necessary?

 

He's Dan Goodell and his pages on the Dell restore partition are here, might be easier to work through that?

 

Hi satrow, I read those and i see that zeroing out LBA-3 using RoadKill's section editor is fairly straight forward. I'm unsure about the need to reclone and unhiding the HPA. Particularly the order of those three things and their effect on the recovery partition. The bolded below is not entirely clear to me.

I've read enough to be jumbled up on what is necessary and what is not. I'm going to read the long thread all the way through and see who has success with which procedures. If anyone understands the best way forward jump in. It definitely seems doable, I am just unfamiliar with the programs and have to look at each one to see how easy it is to understand.

 

From what I see there, unhiding the HPA then zeroing the LBA-3 then recloning is the given order. I'm not convinced that unhiding the HPA is necessary though.

But - the caveats and details at HPA-issues need to be checked over carefully.

So the original drive needs to have the LBA-3 code removed before recloning. Providing the original Dell MBR remains at LBA-0 and LBA-3 has been zeroed, boot should occur normally, Ctrl+F11 will bring up the Dell Recovery partition and the drive should be seen as it's listed capacity.

That's my interpretation of it anyway - I may well be incorrect as I only read a few paragraphs (and that was pushing close to my boredom threshold ).

 

Apologies to satrow- more from goodalls
This was anew one on me, so I had a look around, and, as said it looks like that PA2 might be the only way to do it.
According to this site, (well worth reading to get the drift of things on this problem)Dell has a tool for one type of partition, and there is another for the other type, but generally it is a no go with Acronis, and ghost,as the special setup for the restore partition cannot be over-ridden,as it can with other copying. (Apparently the HPA or the MediaDirect partition. activates the recovery, but is written specifically that way)
I have done many hours of fiddling with hard drives over the years, but never spotted this problem before. I have used xxclone, and Seagate disc Wizard to do all that I ever needed- frozen bad hard drives , rebuilt the mbr, low level formatted (all with software)
I would have tried Seagate Disc Wizard, as a last resort, while the old drive was available for copying, as I have found it will copy most drives, and not necessarily having to have one of them to be a Seagate (or, old Maxtor)


http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/mediadirect.htm

It might be worth looking at dsrfix by goodalls
http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/fixes.htm

 

This post gives a very good step by step of fixing your truncated hard drive.

 

Looks like this is the simplest method and no risk to the original drive as it merely fixes the cloned drive.

 

My confusion is that some people are fixing before cloning and some fixing after cloning. So the methods are different.

In the passage I quoted Dan Godell seems to be saying there is a need to reclone but in tgell's passage (the one I have been looking at by Brian K.) there does not. I have been giving deference to Dan Goodell because he also came up with the dsrfix that baklogic mentions which may be necessary to get the recovery partition working.

Satrow is right it is hard to keep your concentration on the long thread and there are a lot of extraneous posts. I am hoping Dan and Brian K. get together on a solution later in the thread (I am only on page 3).

I'll check out the MagicBootDisk later this afternoon and see if it is easy to use. If it is then I think just working on the larger HD with no-reclone is the simple fix.

 

I've read through the whole thread and am only slightly more clear than I was this morning.

Tgell's post should definitely get your whole drive visible and the software is easy to use. The gif link for Sectedit in the middle of that post is informative as you can verify you are in LBA-3 by the number at the bottom of the screen.

I think the process leaves you with unpartitioned space at the end of the drive from which you can create a new partition to use the space. Where I am still unclear is whether or not the recovery partition will be accessible from Ctrl + F11. I think it should be and if not I believe it is fixable using the dsrfix program.

I think at this point you should just recover the space and then test your recovery partition or choose to create a new recovery image using either Acronis or Ghost as your new backup media. A new image would make the recovery partition unnecessary. If it were unnecessary then you would be free to repartition the drive as you like. Otherwise, I think the recovery partition has to stay where it is immediately after C:. Your new data partition would have to remain after the recovery partition.

If you have any questions I'll try to clarify.