New SSD Drive showing wrong size

[willpantin]

I replaced my Kingston 64 GB SSD V series with a Crucial 128 GB Real SSD C300.

Method: Made a backup image of my C:\ Kingston SSD Boot Drive using "Windows 7 Backup and Restore," then used my "Windows 7 Repair Disk" to copy the imaged drive to my new Crucial 128 GB Drive.

Problem: Though Windows reports an improvement by increasing my Win 7 rating from 6.7 to 7.3, my new Crucial SSD Drive shows as having only 64 GB capacity (well, 59.5 GB to be precise), instead of closer to 128 GB. The BIOS does show the correct size.

System Details:

ASUS P6T SE

Intel i7 930 @ 2.8 GHz

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1

Is this problem only cosmetic? Can it be easily corrected? Any help would be appreciated...!

[allen2]

Where are you seeing the wrong size ?

[jaclaz]

Where are you seeing the wrong size ?

Or, to rephrase, if you open Disk Management can you see about 64 Gb of unallocated data after (on the right of ) the 64 Gb volume that you imaged/cloned?

jaclaz

[willpantin]

OK, thanks for the hint, jaclaz...!

Sure enough, in Disk Management I see the other 59.5 GB of unallocated disk space...

Thanks!

For the next clueless guy that runs into this:

Solution: I used Disk Management in Windows 7. I right-clicked on the C:\ Volume (left hand side partition), left of the unallocated Volume partition

Then I chose "Extend Volume"

and now I have one large C:\ drive showing 119.14 GB

Thanks again, "jaclaz...!!!" You saved me a lot of time by pointing me in the right direction.

Edited October 16, 2011 by willpantin

[jaclaz]

Thanks again, "jaclaz...!!!" You saved me a lot of time by pointing me in the right direction.

Good , just for the record, according to jaclaz the "right direction" is :

1. NEVER have a single biggish partition on a device
   
2. make the more partitions you can, as most of the chores like backing up, defragging, chkdsk will be faster and easier
   
3. you will have more flexibility, like the possibility of installing a second instance of the OS (or another OS), or an emergency recovery system
   

jaclaz

[willpantin]

@jaclaz

Hmm... Not sure I agree with you when it comes to SSD drives.

They are very expensive to begin with, so usually their main function is to be your main OS boot Drive. I personally can't afford to go any higher than 128 GB...

And, all those chores you mentioned, are very fast with SSD Drives; in fact, defragmenting is not needed at all on SSD drives...!

If anything, I have been considering on using a RAID array to merge my SSD drives. But I don't want to risk the TRIM not working as a result, nor increase my chance of my OS failing due to the increased odds of a drive failure affecting my OS.

Having said that, I do want to mention that I have been out of the loop for a while (hadn't visited the msfn forum in a very long time), and browsing around to catch up, I couldn't help but notice how pleasant and helpful you are towards people asking questions. I just wanted to thank you on everyone's behalf for taking time to help.

I am also pleased to see all the usual people still thriving on here... Sad to hear about Kels' wife passing away, though. Strange how you end up feeling that this community is part of your life, even though, in my case, this is just a hobby...