Customer Reviews

Norton Ghost 9.0 and Partition Magic 8.0 Bundle

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I purchased this bundled as I am quite familar with Ghost, and love it's awesome multimedia help tutorials.

I got it for Partition Magic because I like the graphical user interface, and find that it works quite well. I have been a customer ever since version 3.0 (back in the days of OS/2, multiple DOS operating systems, UnixWare, NeXTSTEP).

As I use a variety of operating systems for testing, web authoring, and development (ranging from Windows XP/2K/2K3 to various distros of Linux like Debian and SuSE), I thought this would be a great product to partition and backup those partitions, without the need to re-install the OS.

However, much to my horror, there's an artificial limitation to Partition Magic, that prevents it from operating or installing when there's an existing server-oriented Windows OS installed on any partition.

I think this is downright deceitful and unethical, as they are trying to force customer to buy their excessively expensive enterprise variety of the software, which seems to be no longer sold under the Symantec umbrella.

Be cautious when considering this product bundle.

I remember Powerquest Partition Magic 2.0, back in the days it was released as an OS/2 *and* MS-DOS utility you could boot and use from a set of two diskettes. I got hands-on experience with Partition Magic up to version 7. Slowly they started dropping features, like HPFS file system support, for no apparent reason.

Soon after version 8 was released, the corporation dubbed Symantec -which I like to refer to as "Engulf and Devour"- bought powerquest and while I no longer used it, soon I started hearing the complaints about the new "activation scheme" in version 8.x, which insisted on "phoning home" before allowing you to use it.

And now, users are supposed to like this artificial, crippled bundle as other reviewers have said below. PQMagic and Powerquest Drive Image have been always superior to Symantec's Ghost products. The era of small powerquest utilities that would fit on a diskette is gone.

It's sad to see such a great company and their products destroyed by Symantec's corporate greed. Welcome to the Symantec partition resizing utility monopoly!. Symantec got rid of their main competitor and destroyed a product in the process.

Man stay away from Ghost 9.0--u ought read the user forums.
I did not think that Norton could be so bad.
I am an experienced Tech-build my own PC's etc.
IF u have any problems Norton telephone support is $30.
So why should they make a decent product.
HAve a western digital firewire-Ghost sees it until u reboot
then it does not see it. OS I follow instructions-hit f6 to load MFG. firewire drivers-ghost wants me to put my disk in a nonexistant drive A: (got a Laptop) with no option to change the drive letter to D: and as we all know most driver disks come in a CD or DVD format now..Dont expect any help at the Norton web site..Bad product stay away..

The product works great, and I was able to restore my hard drive once. One caution is that you will not be able to restore your hard drive over a wireless network using Ghost. The actual copy was flawless, so thumbs up!

The Partition Magic/Boot Magic suite is sort of the industry standard that has been trusted for ages, and it works very well, if you know how to use it. Partitioning your hard drive is not something to be taken lightly (if you mess up you will probably have to spend multiple hours fixing things), so it is important to have a good backup copy, which is what Norton Ghost is for. Be careful when uninstalling Boot Magic. I had to reinstall it once, and I messed up which is why I had to restore with Ghost. Follow all instructions carefully, and the product itself is solid.