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I recently copied my 30GB HDD from my laptop to an Western Digital external 120GB HDD using copywipe 1.14. Everything went fine except now on the external HDD I can only see the 30GB copy. How do I get the other 90GB back? Do I have to repartion the Ex HDD for the 90GB? If anyone can help it would be much appreciated.:confused:

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Dani AI

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Good catch by — this is a common result when a smaller drive is cloned onto a larger one. Cloning usually reproduces the source partition table and filesystem sizes exactly, so the target disk ends up with the same partition(s) as the source and the rest of the space remains unallocated (not lost, just not assigned to any volume).

Options and practical notes:

  • If a single large volume is desired, the existing partition can be expanded to use the free space. Use a partition editor that can resize NTFS safely (for example GParted Live or a reputable Windows partition tool). For system/boot partitions, perform resizing from bootable media so the OS partition isn’t mounted while being modified.
  • If keeping the cloned layout is preferred, create a new partition in the unallocated space and format it (NTFS is recommended for >32 GB and for large files). Note that some older USB-to-SATA bridge chips report the drive as “removable,” and Windows historically only exposed the first partition on removable devices — so multiple partitions may not show up unless the enclosure reports the disk as fixed.
  • If you plan to re-clone in future, pick imaging/cloning software that offers “resize to fit” or “restore to larger disk” so partitions are automatically expanded during restore.

Safety and compatibility tips:

  • Back up important data before any partition changes. Resizing/partitioning carries some risk.
  • Be aware of filesystem limits (FAT32 has single-file and formatting quirks; NTFS is safer for large volumes).
  • MBR has a four-primary-partition limit and a ~2 TB limit; for very large disks use GPT.

If space still doesn’t appear after these steps, check for hidden OEM/recovery partitions or run a partition-recovery tool (TestDisk) to inspect the partition table.

Member Avatar for reezin14

I didn't think before I posted this thread:eek: After I thought about it, I used Computer management/Disk management to map an extended partition using the rest of the HDD,formatted and everything is nice now so. Sorry if I wasted anyones time.

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