Customer Reviews

Powerquest PartitionMagic 8.0

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

If using windows xp home or pro with NTFS file system this product may not work. Powerquest has so far been unable to help. I would suggest doing a search for "partition magic error 1513" before you buy. I've read other reviews that the software works just fine for XP, but so far just a waste of money.

Update, Thanks powerquest. After a week of waiting I was E-mailed the top secrete address to the password protected zip file patch. (oh by the way phone support cost $30.00 per call) The runaround only hurts honest customers how didn't steal there product in the first place. I'm a firm believer that a know problem should be fixed or patch readily available without having to wait on an E-mail reply. After a few files were replaced the software works great, just as expected. You should buy this product a week or so before you intend to use it, just in case. 4 stars for the software 1 for customer support.

I've used Partition Magic since version 3.0. Partition Magic 8.0 is now WinXP compatable and supports hard drives up to 160 GB and now you can move files from one partition to another regardless of partition types. This software is a phenominal program that allows hard drive repartitioning "on-the-fly" and easy booting into different operating systems. I have a PC-DOS/Win3.1 partition and a Win98SE partition on the same hard drive and a WixXP partition on a second hard drive. I have also had a Linux partition on the first drive. You can resize partitions and convert from fat 16 to fat32 and back. You can also divide one large hard drive into several drives to help organize data and files. Boot Magic (and the previous Boot Manager) are great to allow easy booting into any OS that you have on your drive. Partition Magic has never given my a problem. I have never lost data. The manual is clear, well written and easy to follow. If you want to have more than one OS on your computer or to try out a new OS or upgrade (like WinXP), then this program is a must have. Highly recommended.

I have tried to use Powerquest's products for years. I have purchased the last three PartitionMagic versions. I usually needed to purchase the next PartitionMagic upgrade after installing a new OS version, because the previous version of PartitionMagic didn't support a new file system type. That isn't too unusual - but ...

I also needed to upgrade because PartitionMagic didn't correctly run under the Windows versions that were supposed to be supported, either. I have needed to call Powerquest tech support 4 times because I couldn't run PartitionMagic properly under a "supported" Windows OS. I currently own Partiton Magic 8.0, and it doesn't run properly under Windows XP. I can run Partiton Magic 8.0 using their DOS boot disks, but it is *extremely* slow. (BTW, Powerquest wanted to charge me for 2 of the 4 tech support calls. After a lot of screaming, I was not charged for any of the calls.)

My current dual-boot system has Windows XP and Linux 8.0. Under Windows XP, I get an "Error 117: Partition's drive letter cannot be identified" fatal error. The Windows version of PartitionMagic then aborts. I tried using the Windows version of the PartitionInfo program for tech support, but that won't run properly, either. Using the DOS boot disks, I was able to get the DOS versions of PartitionMagic and PartitionInfo to run. However, The PartitonInfo data file that I e-mailed to Powerquest tech support came back with a "we didn't find any problems with your partitions - you may need to reformat your hard drive" response! Also, it doesn't seem like UltraDMA/Bus Master drivers are loaded under their DOS disks, so everything runs *very* slowly.

At this point, I decided to search for a new product. I ran across a few reviews of Acronis OS Selector 8.0, which got very positive responses. Acronis OS Selector 8.0 is Linux-based, so you are loading a real OS kernel at boot time that looks like it supports UltraDMA and Bus Mastering (unofficially based on my partiton moving/resizing times). The GUI looks somewhat like the Windows XP GUI. It is *very* easy to use and runs quickly. The OS Selector GUI starts quickly at PC bootup, and has all of the necessary functionality (Boot manager and partition management) available at that time. OS Selector doesn't really run under Windows - because it doesn't need to. Also, no "You must reboot your PC" messages occur while changing partitons!

Best of all, Acronis OS Selector 8.0 is cheaper than any of the competition!

Check Acronis Selector 8.0 out. I also purchased Acronis TrueImage 6.0 the same day - an excellent partition back-up product, though it doesn't support DVD writing as described in some of the reviews ...

I've been using Partition Magic since v6. Version 8.0 is well-done, runs under XP, shrinks, expands, and manages partitions as advertised.
However, PowerQuest was bought by Symantec, and now support is non-existent. I just spent an hour with some poor tech in India trying to get product activation to work again, and it is obvious they've never heard of the thing. Online support is also non-existent. Until Symantec gets its act together, I would recommend checking out competing products.

My partition Magic 7.0 no support, no information can find on Symaantec web site.
After they merge the PowerQuest, then they own ghost and partitionmagic, they become the only one brand you can purchase the tool.
They have no support and no information for any old product, they want we to pay $$$ to buy a new one.
Goverment should to investigate the company, we should not to buy any product make by Symantec.

PowerQuest now has released a fix for Error 1513, called the "Error 1513 Patch"...available on its website. After applying the patch I was able to use PartitionMagic to successfully resize a partition.
Though the patch works, I still stand by my original assertion that the lack of response by PowerQuest is criminal. Especially given the fact that my email to their support site was within the timeframe of the patch's release; all they had to do was send a reply telling me to check their site in the next week or two.

For some reason only known to Sony, they ship partitioned hard drives on their Vaio's with C drives hardly big enough for application software, leaving huge expanses of D drives which soon become unusable because of space limitations on the C drive.

Hence my reasons for using Partitionmagic.

Anyway, if you have XP Media Edition with NTFS and try to use this product, you will probably have your hard drive trashed without warning and will spend a weekend rebuilding your PC from backup data. Trust me on this one, I've been there.

This is NOT safe software. If it works, it's great. It just doesn't always work. And product support is really lousy.

I've used PartitionMagic in the past and been satisfied. However, when I moved to Windows XP Pro, the installer warned me when installing my old version (6.0), that the product had known difficulties under XP. So I purchased 8.0 and installed that. The program failed on startup due to what it termed a "partition table error" on one of my drives. The documentation explains what might be responsible and then tells me that to repair it, I need to use the Windows/DOS tools! Being told to use the very (free) tools I was attempting to get away from in order to fix problems before the new, supposedly more-capable program can run strikes me as absurd.

For the most part, Partition Magic does the basic functions for which it's designed. I used it primarily to change cluster size on my NTFS file system. The scary part is that they only offer support through a form you fill out on their website and, in my experience, they don't bother to reply to that. Since it's not a real e-mail address, you don't even have a record of your original message. There is phone support if you want to pay $30 more ($95 after hours).

If your interest is in their DataKeeper program (included with Partition Magic), you should know that when you use it to backup file systems other than your C drive, it will also monitor your C drive whether you want it to or not. This can slow down your system considerably if it starts backing up system files which are constantly changing.

In general, Partition Magic is great if you don't run into any problems, but Data Keeper, as simple as it is, still needs work.

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
I just lost 120GB of email, personal files, media, and backups.
After changing cluster size to 8k to 4k, nothing on drive was readable. No warnings, nothing. There was no way to reverse the process. After holding onto phoneline for almost an hour, PowerQuest support personnel was no help at all.USE THIS SOFTWARE AT YOUR OWN RISK!