Skip to main content

? Restoring a Dell Disk with backup and MBR partitions onto a larger drive

Thread needs solution

My 60 GB laptop (inspiron 1150) hard drive died but I managed to back up the entire disk (three partitions). When I ran the Acronis Utility from CD I was able to select the entire disk as a "recovery", however I was never given the option to resize the partition. Consequently, the partition image is the exact same size as the image. I have an allocated partition which I activated with Partition Magic. However, I am unable to merge the two partitions.

Are there any ways of getting all the partitions (disk) to show up or expand onto the new drive?

0 Users found this helpful

Dear Sam!

Thank you for reporting the issue and let me help you with!

In order to resize partitions you need to choose to recover not the entire drive, but partition after partition. So it should look like: 

  • Choose to recover partition C
  • Choose to resize it
  • Resize
  • Choose to recover another partition
  • Choose to recover partition D
  • Choose to resize it
  • Resize
  • Proceed with the recovery

This should help you with the issue you have faced.

Also please note that in case you are restoring onto the dissimilar hardware you will need to add the drivers for the hardware that in not equal to the system you backed up, and for this you will need Acronis Universal Restore. Acronis Universal Restore is a special add-on and can be purchased separately, but to provide you with the link to the correct version I wiil need to know the full name of the product you are using, so could you please kindly go here in your account and register the license you are using?

I would appreciate if you could let me know whether something is still confusing you, I will be glad to help.

Thank you!

I have a similar problem with a Dell laptop. I am using the Acronis WD version and I have already destroyed 3 WD drives. I can image the internal drive to the new hard drive that is mounted via USB. However it always resizing the drive to the exact size of the image drive. My old drive is 120GB and the new drive is 500GB. When I am done with the Image, the new drive is down to 120GB as well and there is no way to reclaim the other 380 GB. I've had to return 2 drives to Western Digital. Dell is no help.

Is there a way to image my current drive yet keep all of the space on the new drive?

Support at WD said that there is something on my current drive that is getting copies across that is creating confusion on the new drive.

Thanks.

Hello Witt,

Thank you for posting, I will do my best to assist you with this issue.

Most likely there is a hidden Host Protected Area (HPA) partition on your DELL machine. To make sure this is the case, can you create an Acronis report and send me a PM with it. You can also check the following article in our Knowledge Base which deals exclusively with this issue and suggests ways to fix this problem.

 - HPA Makes the Cloned Drive Display Wrong Capacity

Please let me know if you have additional questions or require assistance.

Thank you.