Customer Reviews

PartitionMagic 5.0

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is one of those rare gems of a product whose advertising does not pay due diligence to it's unbelievable quality and reliability. Yes, it is really that good and no I don't work for PowerQuest. At some point you will need to resize a partition, make a new partition, or clone a drive and PM makes it easy and worry-free. If you think you might need this, just buy it. It's worth it. Note that v5.0 does NOT say it is Win2000 compatible. Also be forewarned that if you buy that new huge drive you still might not be able to partition it how you want. Example: the BIOS in my PC (at least I think that's what to blame) cannot access drives > 8gb so my 13 gig drive is painfully data free. YMMV. btw, you can often find this product on sale in computer stores.

This (to me anyway) is one of those things that you never really think about buying. Then one day, you realize that you have tons of disk space, and documents littered all over the place. That was my experience, anyhow.

So, you go and buy PartitionMagic. Period. Don't bother looking anywhere else, nothing can really touch this. It makes partitioning as easy as it can probably be. I had a drive that was a real mess, partitioned with Linux, FAT file system, and all over the place. PartitionMagic cleaned up that drive in minutes.

It does take quite a while for some operations to complete (but we're talking gigabytes of data), I set it going and went for lunch.

I like the other tools in the package - BootMagic does its job admirably (and, IMHO, is much better than LILO), and MagicMover (moves applications/folders across partitions) appears to do its job adequately - this one really takes a while.

There's nothing out there that can really touch this, and if you have either (a) 1 very large drive, (b) two or more drives or (c) multiple OSs, then this is for you.

I was a little concerned when I attempted to install the product and the documented installation instructions didn't work (referenced an executable that didn't exist). It was simple enough to fix, but made me wonder about the overall quality.

And again, while installing Boot Magic, I received an "undocumented" Boot Magic error. Not even an explanation of the error on their site. A second e-mail to their support.

One of the two e-mails to Partition Magic support was answered five days later simply re-stating the information in the error message. Never did receive a reply on the general installation question.

Actually, the ease-of-use of the product had won me over, until it "hung" on a partition resize operation and left the partition "locked" thus unavailable to the OS scandisk utility (which, incidentally, is what they tell you to run to clear the condition). Only way out, format the disk. I see why they tell you to back everything up before using their product.

A few too many problems for my liking. I can't recommend it.

This product is a dream come true. You can add/change/delete partitions on the fly without have to reinstall everything. I use it to play around with several operating systems, but it is also very nice to increase/decrease partition size when you need to.

Finally, a software product that does exactly what it claims to do...and it does it perfectly. I dreaded partioning the 27 Gig hard drive on my new Dell. If I'd only known how easy Partition Magic would make it, I never would've sweated it out. Perfect!

Partition Magic is one of the more useful tools that I've used. I have multiple partitions on my hard drive at work including Linux and Windows. I needed more windows space one day so loaded up Partition Magic and less than an hour later, all the partitions were moved around and I had the extra space I needed.

The tool is easy to use, you don't have to read the manual, and works quickly and painlessless. I haven't seen any problems since using it and I check my drive frequently.

My only gripe, and it isn't about Partition Magic, is that there is a need for a tool like this at all. I question the paradigm that requires setting unchanging partitions on a hard drive that are so inflexible. Surely, with current technology, we could do away with the idea of partitions (beyond the need to keep operating systems separate as with Linux/Windows) and give users flexibility with their hard drive space.

Still, now that partitions are the way that we are going, you need Partition Magic to get the flexibility you should have anyway. A great tool, and well worth looking into if you need your hard drive partitions moved or changed.

The greatest thing since sliced bread resliced my hard drive to perfection! All my partitions are FAT 32 under Windows 98. Yes, I've used FDISK before to do repartitioning and, believe me, it feels so much better when you don't have to hope and pray that you backed up everything correctly on your old partition. (I still back up old partitions, of course, but now I'm not anywhere near as nervous as I was before.) I was particularly in need of partitioning because I didn't leave enough temp space on my C: drive.

It's especially nice to have PartitionMagic around when you've first unpacked a new hard drive and don't know if you've partitioned the disk into useful enough portions. This is truly a must-have!

I purchased this software package because of: 1.The customer reviews, and 2.I wanted to partition my new 45 gig hard drive (I thought it would speed up the processor speed).

The instructions are not user friendly, I had to muddle through the process of setting up my partitions. Once the software started, it too SEVERAL hours to complete the process. This information was not in the book, but on a supplement insert I happen to read while waiting for the process to complete (needless to say I stopped waiting and left my computer on by itself to do its work).

Once the program was in place the partitions were competed the way I set them up, but the program caused problems with other software I previously installed and those I installed after Partition Magic. For example, my internet connection program would not work and tech support ran out of alternatives to solve the problem.

I was lucky to have Power Quest "Second Chance" included with my computer so after I uninstalled Partition Magic, I revereted to the second chance program to restore my system before installing PM. Everything worked after the uninstallation and restoration.

As an unexpected bonus though, the partitions were still in place and my computer system works the way I wanted it to, but I don't notice any faster processing speeds.

Good program but you may need more than an intermediate knowledge of home computer systems.

The first message i got when loading this software was...

"Partiotion Magic does not work on the current version of windows that is installed. Please install one of the Operating Systems that are listed in the Help File."

Wait till a new release comes out that is compatible with all new operating systems from MS.

I use it to divide my 13Gb hard disk into three with two OS - Windows 98 and Red Hat Linux 6.0. Until now, I do not face any problems relating to this product. My computer is still running smooth. I would think that this product is good, at least I would not need to reformat my hard disk and remain my valuable data. However, I think it is a little bit expensive.