Unable to reallocate space on new larger hard drive
Running Acronis True Image Workstation(Full Version) on bootable CD(Rescue Media). I just purchased a Seagate 1.5TB internal SATA drive(ST31500341AS) to increase my system drive capacity from a very similar Seagate 1TB SATA drive.
There are two partitions on the 1TB System drive. One is the C:/ partition at 898GB(NTFS), the other is D:/, a System Recovery partition at 33GB(FAT32). I want to clone the 1TB system drive to the new 1.5TB drive, but I want to resize the C:/ partition to claim the extra space on the new larger drive. I am unable to make that happen. Instead, I'm left with over 400GB of unallocated hard drive space, or the Recovery partition(D:/) is increased to take up that un-allocated space. The Acronis software isn't allowing me to increase the size of the cloned (C:/) System partition beyond it's original 898GB size.
Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

- Accedi per poter commentare

Similar question like Warren's ...
I am also cloning to a larger hard drive .... I used the "manual options" to reduce the size of the Windows Recovery partition that Acronis plans on creating, just wasteful drive space, and I decreased the size of that potential partition, and that space then becomes "unallocated".
I cannot find any process in the Acronis program, at this stage of the cloning, to "allocate" that space to my primary partition, that will be created on my new and larger hard drive.
Is there no way to "allocate" this newly created space within this program?
Or must I load that drive into my computer and use Windows Disk Utility to make that space available?
Side question, if one "clones" their drive on a regular basis, is there really a need to have that Windows recovery partition??
My thought is, if you "clones" are current and you have a problem with Windows operating properly, rather than use Windows recovery to potentially reinstall the drivers, just pop your clone into the computer...
Anybody have any thoughts on this??
- Accedi per poter commentare

Here are a couple manual cloning examples of how to manuipulate the space to achieve the size you wish for each partition.
https://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/forum/2009/11/5940/mar1-g…
https://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/forum/2009/11/5940/mar1-g…
Regarding your comments about changing Recovery partition size.
Carefully Double check the Recovery partition size. Aren't we talking megabytes and not gigabytes. If it megabytes, then space for the Recovery is miniscule. If you reduce the Recovery size, it will probably not function correctly.
It is possible to combine the Recovery with C but that involves copying several files and making changes. This works best with a fresh install of Windows.
If you have further questions, post a picture of your source master disk as shown iin Windows Disk Management graphical view.
- Accedi per poter commentare

Glenn Majka wrote:Side question, if one "clones" their drive on a regular basis, is there really a need to have that Windows recovery partition??
My thought is, if you "clones" are current and you have a problem with Windows operating properly, rather than use Windows recovery to potentially reinstall the drivers, just pop your clone into the computer...
Anybody have any thoughts on this??
Glenn,
I'm a periodic Cloner and I chose to leave the Recovery partitions as is since, with my Toshiba Laptop, those partitions are only using 2.6% of my 500Gb HDD and I'd rather leave them as originally partitioned from Toshiba since they're the Factory-Restore partitions containing Drivers, etc, to restore to an out-of-the-box condition should it be required.
As Grover mentioned, the partition space isn't much considering the possibility of encountering a situation where you'd need to use the Recovery partition[s].
That said, I agree with you about using a Cloned HDD as a fast recovery method. I've used it that way a few times during the past 3 years and it's a real time-saver.
Barring an infrequent Driver or firmware-incompatibility situation, relying on the factory-restore recovery path shouldn't be required if one is periodically Cloning and Imaging their HDD. I just like to have it available in the event of a rare issue arising with the previously-mentioned scenarios.
I've used Cloning once to upgrade my Desktop PC from a 500Gb to a 1 Tb HDD using the "Automatic" cloning mode and it worked ok. I didn't have a problem with the "C" partition being under-sized or a portion unallocated.
However, my Desktop PC is a built PC with just the Windows "System Reserved" partition and my "C" partition so there wasn't any OEM factory partitions to consider with this PC.
- Accedi per poter commentare

Thanks for the prompt response ....
When I use the default - automatic and relative partition sizes from within this program, there is too much unused space, for my needs, assigned to that new Recovery partition. ( GBs not MBs involved in my case )
But, I now know how to recover some of that space for other uses, and yes, that default amount of disk space that Windows grabs for it's Recovery partition is not relatively very large.
Your point about maybe needing to use the original drivers from that Recovery partition is a very valid one.
It's just very time consuming, as you already know, to then have to install any software not included in that Recovery partition, getting Windows updates, software updates, copying back data to drive, on and on, etc, etc ...
Once again, thanks for your prompt response.
- Accedi per poter commentare

Thank you Glenn for the follow-up. I'm glad that page 18-19 provided some help.
https://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/forum/2009/11/5940/mar1-g…
- Accedi per poter commentare