Reallocating Unallocated Space on Upgraded HD (Dell Inspiron)

Question

I want to upgrade my Dell Inspiron 1420 Laptop currently with a 160GB (Toshiba) 2.5" HD to a a 500 GB (Western Digital), both SATA. I am running Vista Home Premium (SP2). I have backed up the complete system to an external USB HD using the WD (Western Digital/Acronis True Image 2010) free download - quite a bonus!

Ideally what I want to do is clone my OS, settings and programs as they stand and gain an extra 340 GB HD capacity (500-160GB). I thought this would be easy, but all I have succeeded in is getting a clone of what I had (160GB) on my new 500GB HD. I cannot reallocate the additional "unallocated space" as Dell has already used all the available 4 partitions. This seems to be a common issue with many users with Dell systems.

I am not a real computor wizz, so tried to follow each instruction step by step, but am now coming unstuck. My new 500GB drive is up and running perfectly, only it only has 160GB capacity for use - I need to reallocate the remaining space.

There are four partitions that show up in the Acronis True Image on my new HD:
Unlabeled: FAT 16, 78.41MB (EISA Configured) - Primary
C:OS NTFS 136.5GB - Primary, Active
D:Data NTFS 10GB - Primary
Media Direct FAT32 2.499GB Logical
and then there is approximately 316GB of unallocated space that I cannot allocate.

I have read the following very useful posts among many others, but am unclear on the exact steps to take (ID 10T factor?). They all relate to modifying the MBR. The threads are all a little old, and I suspect that somewhere out there,there will be a simpler solution, or more updated software solutions.

Can Dell's media direct partition be deleted ?

Restore on larger hard disk changed disk size See post #27 which has a solution but on trying it out, only works for an IDE drive, although my computor did reboot after doing the changes. Still can't reallocate the space.

Reading each of these makes me a little more wary of stuffing something up, as the solutions of messing around with the MBR fill me with fear (in my ignorance).

My questions are:

1. Is there a simple way to reallocate the unallocated space? i.e "reallocating unallocated space for Dummies".

2. If the above is a cumbersome process, is there a way to clone the C drive portion of my existing hard drive that contains my OS, settings, programs and data onto my new HD and do away with all the other stuff (Media Direct, Recovery partition and hidden partition) - to be honest, it may be the best for me - I can use the True Image to recover any time anyway, and if all turns belly up, I have my original HDD to fall back on.

3. I never use Media Direct. If I just delete the MD partition, can I allocate the spare capacity to that - will that cause me grief?

I also prefer a HD structure that allows me to keep my Data separate from my OS and Programs, typically OS and programs on C and Data on D.

Appreciate any assistance.

ieee488 · Answer

http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

Tom Green · Answer

Hello NETORIUS77

I use Acronis True Image to image each partition by them self and save, I don't clone a drive.

I use DiskPart to prep the drive making the partition size that I want.

First partition about 80 Megs format as fat partition, for use as Dell Diag.

Second Partition all -minus the size I wanted for the other partitions, and format as ntfs.

Third and fourth partition same way. If you need more partition, you could delete Media Direct

partition, if you don't use it. Just make sure you have a good image of it stored in case you change your

mind about it. Also the first partition, Dell Diag partition, can be run from a CD or Flash drive which

means you could remove it also. Again make sure youhave a good image of it also.

Then when you restore the image on to it's partition you should'nt have a problem with size.

The image will install on the larger partition and you can use all of it partition size.

Hope this helps and good luck.

Tom

bacillus · Answer

I suspect your problem lies with the media direct partition the Acronis sometimes can't transfer across properly. Does MD work if you press the button with the laptop off?

netorius77 · Answer

Thanks for the help. I thought I would add a bit more as this has solved my problem, and judging from the numvber of threads that I read on Google covering this topic, there are many people with similar issues. I highly recommend the WD 500GB upgrade especially as one can download the free TI software to use to install it. I am sure there are others as well.

I think I have solved my problem. Basically deleting the Media Direct partition and then allocating the "unallocated space" to a new partition ("F" in my case). This was easily done with the freee Easeus Partition software.I have never used the MD so have no issue with that. The computor is still stable. By the way bacillus, MD did work before I deleted the partition, so TI worked fine in that respect.

I have left my DVD as "E" as I am worried that if I reallocate that a new drive letter and allocate my new partion to "E" there may be other issues. I would have preferred that my new partition was "E" and the DVD became "F", but for simplicity sake leave it as is.

As also recommended by Tom Green, I had also used TI to image each partition individually and that all worked very well. The step by step instructions that can be downloaded (on the WD website) are pretty detailed, although not aimed at the issue created by the Dell HPA issue.

My issue has now gone away and I will leave the Dell diagnostics partition where it is as at this stage I have plenty of memory available. I guess the 80GB would be a fair amount of memory to free up though if needed.

Windows General

Reallocating Unallocated Space on Upgraded HD (Dell Inspiron)

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