Need computer help

[Raymond Fries]

I am upgrading the hard drives in our HP 8120 media center computer from 2 Seagate 320gb dribes to 2 1TB drives. I installed the new drives and ran the restore cd's. The factory image restored but the computer only sees 2 232gb drives. How Do I Regain all of the lost space? I went into the bios screen and cannot change it there.

[Wade Lippman]

I "believe" the factory image is restoring to the drives the computer came with. It can't use the extra space.

I have always used MiniTool Partition Wizard to move systems from old to new drives; but I expect it will solve your problem also. It will show your empty space and allow you to expand the existing partitions to to use that space.

Of course, I don't know what a media center computer is, so I could be horribly wrong.

[Brian Henderson]

You didn't say what your OS is. Windows 7 and beyond has its own non-destructive partitioning software, you can go in and tell it to resize the partitions and create new partitions. For older versions of Windows, you have to use a third party program like Partition Magic to do it. Go into BIOS and make sure that the computer sees the correct size of the two new drives.

[Steve Wurster]

Assuming it's Windows, right-click on My Computer and select Manage. On the left side you'll see Storage and under that Disk Management. Click on that and see if it shows that the physical drives (Disk 0, Disk 1) are in fact larger than their currently allocated space. If so, try right-clicking on the allocated space (e.g. C: ) and select Extend Volume.

[Raymond Fries]

This is a vista computer.
Extend volume is grayed out.

If I could get the space back on these drives. I could put the old drives back in and use ghost to grab an image. then I could put the new drives back in and restore the image.

always a problem.....

[Steve Wurster]

Try the instructions at this link. http://superuser.com/questions/29267/why-cant-i-extend-the-c-drive-on-vista-because-i-have-free-space-to-its-right/29272#29272

[Chuck Wintle]

I "believe" the factory image is restoring to the drives the computer came with. It can't use the extra space.

I have always used MiniTool Partition Wizard to move systems from old to new drives; but I expect it will solve your problem also. It will show your empty space and allow you to expand the existing partitions to to use that space.

Of course, I don't know what a media center computer is, so I could be horribly wrong.

+1 for MiniTool Partition wizard. Its free and easy to use, just install, launch and resize the partitions.

[Raymond Fries]

thanks for the tips guys. will trythe tool tomorrow.
wade - the media center has a tv card in so you can watch and record shows. you can burn them to dvd as well.
it also has slots for all ofthe camera chips.

steve- my computer did not like parted.

[Curt Harms]

thanks for the tips guys. will trythe tool tomorrow.
wade - the media center has a tv card in so you can watch and record shows. you can burn them to dvd as well.
it also has slots for all ofthe camera chips.

steve- my computer did not like parted.

Just as well, too. Parted/Gparted are partition/disk tools primarily for *nix operating systems. It's generally recommended to use Microsoft tools to manipulate Microsoft formatted disks. Gparted will recognize and manipulate NTFS & FAT partitions but isn't the first choice and I wouldn't guarantee the result.

[Steve Wurster]

Just as well, too. Parted/Gparted are partition/disk tools primarily for *nix operating systems. It's generally recommended to use Microsoft tools to manipulate Microsoft formatted disks. Gparted will recognize and manipulate NTFS & FAT partitions but isn't the first choice and I wouldn't guarantee the result.

Parted (I think these days it's diskpart) comes with Windows. Raymond, try "diskpart" instead of parted and see if the instructions are the same.

[Raymond Fries]

Diskpart does work but but I get a message saying the volume is not valid to extend. Both drives are formatted with NTFS and are basic file systems.

Any ideas?

Is it possible that the volumes will not extend because they might be spanned for one drive? C drive = 224 mg. D drive = 8mb. Both together = 232 mg drive. When I look at the disk 1 in computer management it has the 232 mg but only shows the 224 volume as a part of it. Disk 0 shows both volumes. Kind of a waste for 2tb of space huh.

BTW - tried several sites to download the mini tool app and it is not available.
I found a copy of EaseUS Partition Manager but could not figure out what numbers to put in. I think this is a tool for those that unserstand cylinders, sectors, etc.

[Chuck Wintle]

Diskpart does work but but I get a message saying the volume is not valid to extend. Both drives are formatted with NTFS and are basic file systems.

Any ideas?

Is it possible that the volumes will not extend because they are spanned for one drive? C drive = 224 mg. D drive = 8mb. Both together = 232 mg drive. Kind of a waste for 2tb of space huh.

BTW - tried several sites to download the mini tool app and it is not available.
I found a copy of EaseUS Partition Manager but could not figure out what numbers to put in. I think this is a tool for those that unserstand cylinders, sectors, etc.

you are mistaken about the minitool partition wizard...its available from cnet.

http://download.cnet.com/MiniTool-Partition-Wizard-Free-Edition/3000-2094_4-10962200.html

[Chuck Wintle]

Is it possible that the volumes will not extend because they are spanned for one drive? C drive = 224 mg. D drive = 8mb. Both together = 232 mg drive. Kind of a waste for 2tb of space huh.



Can you elaborate a little on this statement? If you put back the original drive what exactly do you have? Use a cloning program to put that on the new drive.

[Raymond Fries]

I took out the original drives. I installed two 1tb drives. Then I ran the factory restore cd. What I now have is a 1tb drive formatted to 224gb. The other 1tb drive is formatted to 8gb. These two drives show up in computer management as Disk 0. Disk 1 shows as the 232gb. I have tried formatting the 8gb frive and do net regain the space.

I found that if I delete the partition for the 8gb drive I can extend the volume on the 224gb drive but it only extends to 232gb and not 2tb.

I do have Ghost and could create an image to restore but how do I get the drives back to 1tb drives to do this?

Maybe it is my connection but I get an error trying to download saying it cannot open the site.

[Steve Wurster]

I took out the original drives. I installed two 1tb drives. Then I ran the factory restore cd. What I now have is a 1tb drive formatted to 224gb. The other 1tb drive is formatted to 8gb. These two drives show up in computer management as Disk 0. Disk 1 shows as the 232gb. I have tried formatting the 8gb frive and do net regain the space.

I found that if I delete the partition for the 8gb drive I can extend the volume on the 224gb drive but it only extends to 232gb and not 2tb.

I do have Ghost and could create an image to restore but how do I get the drives back to 1tb drives to do this?

So Windows thinks you only have 2 drives when in fact you have 3 physical drives? If so, are the 2 1TB drives setup in a RAID somehow via the motherboard?

[Chuck Wintle]

I took out the original drives. I installed two 1tb drives. Then I ran the factory restore cd. What I now have is a 1tb drive formatted to 224gb. The other 1tb drive is formatted to 8gb. These two drives show up in computer management as Disk 0. Disk 1 shows as the 232gb. I have tried formatting the 8gb frive and do net regain the space.

I found that if I delete the partition for the 8gb drive I can extend the volume on the 224gb drive but it only extends to 232gb and not 2tb.

I do have Ghost and could create an image to restore but how do I get the drives back to 1tb drives to do this?

Maybe it is my connection but I get an error trying to download saying it cannot open the site.

to get the drives back to 1TB you will need to delete the created partition and then format to NTFS. Set aside the original drives so nothing will happen to them. use the manufacturers software and do the delete and format.

[Curt Harms]

Parted (I think these days it's diskpart) comes with Windows. Raymond, try "diskpart" instead of parted and see if the instructions are the same.

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2011/09/parted-command-examples/


Parted is a GNU utility, which is used to manipulate the hard disk partitions.

diskpart is there (in Win10 at least) but appears to be a command line utility that most non-pro users, me among them will be lost trying to use. I'd go along with format the new disk(s) then use a cloning or backup tool to restore.