PartitionMagic 7.0
When it's time to divide and conquer, the right tools are vital. Whether partitioning to create a multiple-OS machine or just to improve efficiency, users of PartitionMagic 7.0 will get the job done quickly and easily. Still, novice computer users should be extremely wary of trying this--or any other low-level operation--without patient and trusted help, as it is all too easy to make serious, irrevocable mistakes and lose precious data. That said, most who know enough about hard drives to know they need new or resized partitions should find PartitionMagic simple and headache-free. Designed for Windows XP, PartitionMagic 7.0 does fine with earlier Windows versions and supports hard drives up to 80 GB. The BootMagic utility makes switching between operating systems as simple as rebooting. While this wizard-driven software might make power users suspicious, it does make life much easier for all users and is still flexible enough to arrange partitions to everyone's satisfaction. While many folks will use this package once and never see it again, experienced users can resize partitions on the fly and tweak to their heart's delight. It's inevitable that some hardware configurations won't work with PartitionMagic, and that this can occasionally lead to catastrophic errors; it is absolutely essential for all users to back up crucial files beforehand. PowerQuest is generally good about providing support and patches for configuration problems, so it's best to check their Web site for information before running it. Despite all the caveats, this is simply the best set of tools available for quick partition management. --Rob Lightner
PartitionMagic allows you to create, resize, merge, and convert partitions on your hard drive without destroying data. Partitioning allows you to maximize your hard drive space, safely run multiple operating systems, and organize and protect your data. PartitionMagic 7.0 also now allows you to merge NTFS partitions, partition hard drives as large as 80 GB, access and partition external USB drives, and undelete a deleted partition from rescue disks. And, it supports Windows XP. With an easy-to-use Windows interface, PartitionMagic 7.0 puts the benefits of hard-drive partitioning within reach of everyone. Easy, step-by-step wizards help you perform partitioning tasks, and you can preview the effects of partitioning your hard drive before implementing anything. You can also safely manage multiple operating systems, and convert from one file system or partition type to another without losing data. PartitionMagic 7.0 supports FAT, FAT32, NTFS, and Linux ext2/swap file systems.
PartitionMagic 7.0 Accessories
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Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 [OLD VERSION]
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PartitionMagic 7.0 Reviews
I had to unload many photos and needed the soft ware to allow me to re-partition my drive. It will be a long time, if ever, that I do this again. This perhaps saved the mailing costs of a dollar or two but it sure was not in my best intrest. I would not accept the package from the mail system as it took almost three weeks to get the software to my house. When it did get here I found that it was shipped via USPS book rate. I will expect to see the credit card credited with $69.91 when the software arrives. I finnaly purchased a new 160 GHz drive while I was waiting for the software to arrive.
I highly recommend it. I used it to change my Fat16 to Fat32 under Windows 98 and it worked great for me. No problems at all.
You want to use Power Quest Drive Image to create a clone of the hard disk on computer #1 on CD. With Partition Magic, you just insert a diskette and about two minutes later you are done shrinking the partition to the needed size. Paraphrasing their words: obviously this function is not easy since it took 15 years from the introduction of the IBM-PC for someone to invent it. And when you need it, this is the only program on earth that will do this work. If you need it, believe me, you know it. This product does what is otherwise impossible: shrinks a partition without disturbing the data therein.
The rest is free space. That forces you to back up all the data to another hard drive, delete the partition, recreate the partition to the 1GB size, then format the partition, then reload the data from the spare hard drive, if possible, then create your Drive Image CD, and then go to through the whole process again to expand the partition back. Computer #1 has a 100 GB hard drive in a single partition, but only 1GB is actually in use. This could take all day.
Here's an example:. What you need is a way to shrink the partition size down to just the 1GB in use. That kills you. That might take you many CDs. With this technology available doing it the old way makes about as much sense as using a Radio Shack cassette tape player for data storage on your IBM-PC instead of a hard drive.
Then every Friday night after class you can restore the image on all 8 computers and Monday morning all your computers are fresh and ready, regardless of what last week's students did. If you wonder why you would need this software, don't worry about it. The former owner of this program, Power Quest, was granted several patents on this technique. It takes just a minute or two to shrink or expand a partition. It has always worked for me. Check it out at www.uspto.gov - it's fascinating reading. Snap your image CD and then fire up Partition Magic again and in another two minutes the partition is back where it started.
Say you have a teaching lab with 8 computers. Conventional tools will not allow you to do this.they erase all the data in the partition if you shrink it. Since Drive Image backs up a partition at a time, you will need enough CDs to hold 100GB of compressed data, even though most of it will just be zeros. Also it works very fast. When you need it and it works it is AWESOME.
For the price I paid for these products I could have bought a second hard drive and Norton Ghost or some other backup program which hasn't been ruined by corporate bean counters. I am out of work so I decided to just give up the 20GB of orphaned space, but yesterday I found that DriveImage is not working either (same error message).
I was able to take the 20GB space from my data partition but unable to move it to my WindowsXP Pro partition, getting message "ERROR #1513 BAD ATTRIBUTE POSITION IN FILE RECORD". I have owned multiple copies and versions of PowerQuest products for years, including DriveCopy, DataKeeper (orphaned under WinXP), DriveImage, and especially, PartitionMagic.
These WERE great products, but I'm through with using them. I enthusiastically encouraged friends and co-workers to use the products also, despite their predatory marketing (every function is sold as a separate "product", and my timing always seems to be to buy a new PC and PartitionMagic a few weeks before the next release comes out - too bad, buy again).
I contacted PQ and their fix is to upgrade to PM 8. I recently had a problem with trying to resize the partitions on my year old PC with PartitionMagic 7 - bought with the PC and used ONCE to originally create the partitions.
So now I can not backup my PC and all my existing backups of my OS and data are worthless.With the current price of hard drives so low, my hard drive partitioning days are over.
The documentation does not address the problems that the user who has average understanding of operating systems confronts. The title of this review says it all. That said, once you get it to do what you want it to, Parition Magic is a great tool
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