Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: PartitionMagic 7.0
Need to configure a disk partition or three? Then don't destroy your data - try a little magic, writes Dave Cook.
| Product | PartitionMagic 7.0 |
|---|---|
| Company | Powerquest |
| Web | www.powerquest.com |
| Price | £49.99 inc VAT |
| We like | Easy to use. Windows XP support. |
| We don't like | Not enough new features. |
| Rating | 9/10 |
| Requirements |
As hard disk capacities continue to grow, it makes sense to partition large drives into smaller segments. For one thing, ensuring the operating system and your important data files are kept on different partitions is highly desirable. Secondly, storing valuable information such as data files, applications, and so forth in separate partitions not only helps you to work more efficiently, it safeguards that information far better than if you were to store it on one large partition.
Unfortunately, Microsoft's FDISK utility can't partition your disk without destroying your valuable data; which means that if you want any reasonable control of your partitions - existing or otherwise - your best option is to invest in a utility such as PowerQuest's PartitionMagic 7.0.
This powerful tool allows you to make extensive changes to your partitions without having to worry about losing data. Using PartitionMagic 7.0, for example, you could create two or more boot partitions, with each partition containing different versions of Windows.
New Features
The most important new feature of PartitionMagic 7.0 is that it now supports Windows XP. PartitionMagic 7.0 also includes the ability to merge NTFS (including Windows XP) partitions. Be aware, though, that when merging two NTFS partitions, both partitions need to be of the same NTFS version and of the same cluster size. You must also be careful not to merge two primary partitions, each containing its own operating system, as this will make your computer unbootable.
Other new or improved features include support for external USB hard drives, the ability to split partitions below the root folder, support for drives of more than 80GB, and the capability to undelete a deleted partition from a set of rescue disks. While version 6.0 also sported the undelete feature, the operation had to be performed from the Windows GUI (Graphic User Interface).
It's Wizard
Considering the huge changes PartitionMagic can make to your system, its breezy installation and subsequent user-friendly wizards help to make the program a joy to use. These wizards can guide you through tasks such as creating, resizing, and merging partitions.
Simplicity is the byword here, as the interface made up of easy to understand colour-coded bar diagrams of partitions that exist on each hard drive. They also display important information such as the size, location, and type of the current partitions. Once you have determined your new configuration, you simply click the Apply Changes button to begin the operation.
PartitionMagic 7.0 features BootMagic for selecting which operating system to boot at startup. There's also a useful utility called DriveMapper, which helps to negate problems that sometimes crop up when changing drive letters - an unwelcome consequence of altering the number of partitions on a system. Finally, in line with other PowerQuest products, PartitionMagic 7.0 comes with an excellent user guide
Verdict
PartitionMagic 7.0 doesn't boast that many new features. But if you're planning a move to Microsoft Windows XP, this latest edition can be considered a "must-have" upgrade. Overall, PartitionMagic remains a superb utility - and arguably the best disk partition software bar none.
