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Windows 7 shrinks my HD (twice)

post #1 of 5
Thread Starter 
My 320GB HD died in my HTPC. I replaced with a 1TB HD and used my system recovery disc and backup to restore my system (almost as easy/intuitive as OS X, good job MS). When I was done Windows reported the new 1TB HD size as 300GB. I thought the HD was defective so replaced with a 2TB HD and repeated the system restore. I get the same results. Were is my other 1.7TB's of space and how do I get windows 7 to recover/use it?

Sory if it's obvious but I use OS X and not sure what is going on.
post #2 of 5
Right click My Computer and select Manage. Go to Disk Management. You should see the unallocated portion of the disk. Right click to create partiton and format.
post #3 of 5
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by rayw69 View Post

Right click My Computer and select Manage. Go to Disk Management. You should see the unallocated portion of the disk. Right click to create partiton and format.

Thanks,

I see the unallocated space but when I right click I get a menu that has "New Simple Volume" (no create partiton and format) and other RAID choices that are grayed out. If I click on New Simple Volume it starts a wizard that wants to setup the unallocated space as another drive (like F: ). I don't want this I want drive C: to be 2TB. What am I missing?

I originally formatted the drive as in NTFS as one drive and it was shown as 2TB. Why and how did this change?

EDIT: Figured it out. By right clicking on C: (not the unallocated space)I could select "Expand Space" and expand all the unallocated space. Now drive C: is full size. I take back some of what I said about Windows coming close to OS X in ease of recovery.
post #4 of 5
The built in Windows backup and recover software is pretty limited with respect to partition flexibility. It won't allow you to restore to a smaller partition, even if the actual data set will fit. What you did prior to the restore is blown away upon restore.

Didn't think to give instructions on how to expand, as I'd personally never want a C: that is 2TB. glad you were able to figure it out.
post #5 of 5
The Windows back-up Restore as you found out, restores to the size of the original partition that the back-up was made up. Personally, just like rayw69, it is better to split that 2tb or 1tb up into different drives, due to if you ever have had to live with backing up or defragging a large drive, it is a PITA.
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