I restored my new dell inspiron 8600 hard drive with ghost 15. It was successful. but i think i messed up. The new drive is 80 gig but only shows the original 40 gig. Also it looks like i did not restore the Dell "utility" partition. Hope I said that right.
Thanks
What OS? If you are using Windows 7, you can resize the drive in disk management. I'm not sure if you need the Dell partition, Brian, Dave or Allen will probably come along and comment. As far as filling the new drive, you should have chose "Resize drive after recover(unallocated space only)". On a blank drive the option should have been available. If not click on the disk you are restoring to and Edit..
After you click Edit highlight the drive and click delete. This does not change the disk yet. It will change it when you start the recovery.
Now we have unacclocated space and the option to Resize is available..
Hi running xp
You also need to boot into the BIOS and see if it recognizes the drive as 40 or 80GB.
Some, or all Dell's have a media direct partition that causes problems with drive size.
Dave
That Dell dude is a pain in the butt. Why can't they (and other's) just install Windows on a standard partition like if you installed it yourself. I understand (not really) why they have a recovery partition (they should give the discs).
the bios sees 80 gig
I have no idea what happened to the Dell Dude, maybe he switched to iMac?
I also don't know if they have a recovery partition, they have some kind of diagnostic partition but if I remember correctly it's pretty small and always wondered what it can diagnose.
lalbert wrote:the bios sees 80 gig
Good.
The choice is yours. If everything is working correctly and your OK without the diagnostic partition then you can use disk management to create another partition in the free space for your data.
Or you can use something like Partition Wizzard to expand your existing partiton. (free for home use)
http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
Or you can restore the image agin into unpartitioned space and have Ghost expand it to the whole drive.
Or you can do the restore again and include the diagnostic partition.
Dave
lalbert,
I have an Inspiron 8600. It is still running well. Original battery after over 6 years.
If you don't know how to resize the partition I'd restore the image again. From the Ghost CD, delete the partition and follow redk9258's advice about "Resize drive after recover(unallocated space only)"
Don't worry about the Utility partition. You can run diagnostics from the Dell CD.
OK let me digest all of this greatstuff. Thankyou very much.I'll report back.
Hi I used the partition program and it was perfect.I'll bag the utility deal for now and just be happy with my new hard drive and revitalized laptop.
Thanks to everyone who helped out
Larry
Anyone,
Do you know if the Dell Inspiron 8600 has a 137 GB Hard Drive limitation? I have a 60 GB HD and still have plenty of space but I'm just curious.
HI NOT SURE BUT REMEMBER IN MY RESEARCH THERE WAS A LIMITATION.
I rETURNED A 180 GIG TO DELL BECAUSE THERE SEEMED TO BE A PROBLEM WITH THAT SIZE. NEVER TRIED IT OUT.
SORRY FOR THE CAPS
LARRY
He knew about it because you told him. :)
http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/Ghost-15-new-laptop-hd/m-p/208859#M20106
Dave, thanks. I'd forgotten the earlier thread. I did some more research and the 8600 does have a 137 GB HD limitation. But if you have a larger HD you can create a partition in the first 137 GB (127 GiB) and as long as you don't try and use the HD beyond the limitation, all will be fine.
I have an older system at home with the same limitation.
If both partition boundries are before the limitation it works. I always did it that way rather than using any jumpers to "clip" the size of a drive because I never knew what would happen when you later "uncliped" a drive.
I also had a external ESATA drive that I used to take back and forth from home and work. I made the first partition less than 128GB and at home I could only "see" the fist partition and at work I could access both partitions.
That thread I linked to also mentions a size limitation I have on my work computer using a SATA drive, the BIOS on this system doesn't have a problem, the problem seems to be in my SATA controller.
I got all kinds of quirks I have to deal with.
Dave