Today's high-capacity hard disks work more efficiently when divided
into multiple partitions, each with its own drive letter, but the only
tool offered by Microsoft Windows for subdividing a disk -- the FDISK
utility -- destroys all your data when you reorganise your disk.
Enter PowerQuest's PartitionMagic 6.0, the most powerful and flexible
disk management utility ever written, able to do almost anything
imaginable to disk partitions at no risk to your data.
As in earlier versions, PartitionMagic uses a graphical interface on which you can resize, merge, create, or move partitions; convert partitions between FAT, FAT32, and NTFS file formats; and also copy partitions from one disk to another. The software can manage Linux partitions as easily as Windows partitions. Version 6.0 adds the ability to undelete a removed partition (if data hasn't already been written to its area on the disk) and the ability to split one partition into two and move user-specified folders into the newly created partition.
Corporate users will want the Pro version (AU$549 for five licenses), which includes scripting support for operations that need to be performed repeatedly and an across-the-wire feature that uses a TCP/IP connection to copy a partition between two computers and manage partitions on a remote machine.
PartitionMagic can be run from Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000, Me, or NT; a supplied DOS version can be used in emergencies when Windows won't boot or with Linux-based systems. Experts can use the menus to build elaborate task lists that can resize and move multiple partitions in a single operation, and this new version lets you make changes to the task list without rebuilding it from the start, as was the case in earlier versions.
Beginners can use a wizard interface to redistribute free space, create new partitions, resize partitions, or merge or copy partitions. You can create two or more boot partitions -- each with different copies or versions of Windows -- and allot one for testing and the other for ordinary use.
The only serious rival to PartitionMagic is V Communication's Partition Commander 6.0, which has a closely similar feature set but a slightly more awkward interface. If you're buying a partition manager for the first time, PartitionMagic's smooth interface makes it the best choice in a tight race.
PartitionMagic 6.0
Company: Marketing Results
Ph: 02 9899 5888
Price: AU$149; Upgrade, AU$69.95; Pro version, AU$549.
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