The box claims that the product will convert partitions on USB 2.0 drives up to 300GB. That appears to be untrue. The box also claims "Award-Winning Support". Given the complete inability to solve or even diagnose the problem on 2 different occasions, I wonder just what kind of award they won. Least capable? Most downsized?
Here's the chat transcript. You be the judge.
Vijay: Hi, thank you for contacting Symantec Live Technical Support. My name is Vijay. How may I help you?
Paul: I have just installed Partition Magic 8.05. I have a 250 GB USB drive which I want to convert from NTFS to FAT32. The convert dialog box has all the options grayed out EXCEPT turning the primary partition into a Logical partition.
Paul: Is it possible to do the conversion? (This is why I bought Partition Magic in the first place.)
Vijay: Before troubleshooting any further, I need to gather some more information from you. May I proceed?
Paul: Sure
Vijay: Thank you.
Vijay: Did you partition the drive into small partitions?
Paul: No. It is one partition.
Vijay: Is it external drive or internal drive?
Paul: By the way, I called on Friday and someone tried to figure this out and was supposed to call back. They never did.
Paul: The case number is <nnn>. External drive. Maxtor. USB. 250 GB
Vijay: Can you please be on hold while I refer to the documents. This may take 2-3 minutes.
Paul: Sure
Vijay: Thank you.
Vijay: Thank you for being online.
Vijay: Paul, does the Partition Magic options are enabled in other internal drives?
Paul: Yes, it is enabled for the internal drive.
Paul: The box claims that it works for USB 2.0 drives, which is what this one is.
Vijay: How many internal hard drives do you have installed in your computer?
Paul: It's a notebook computer. There is 1 internal hard drive (100 gb). And there is 1 external USB hard drive (250 gb). The USB drive is directly connected to the computer (no hubs or anything like that).
Vijay: How many partitions are there in internal hard drive?
Paul: one
Paul: Computer is running WinXP Home
Paul: Drive is not compressed, encrypted or anything else strange.
Vijay: What is the file system of the internal harddrive?
Paul: NTFS
Vijay: Is the create partition option enabled for external drive?
Paul: There are 2 panels on the screen. The top one, labeled "Pick a task..." has a task labeled "Create a new partition" and it is available.
Paul: The lower panel, labeled "Partition Operations" has an entry labeled "Create Partition" which is GRAYED OUT.
Paul: Same menu availability for both the internal and external drives.
Vijay: Do you get the option Convert when you right click on the external hard drive?
Paul: Yes. And it pops up a dialog box with everything UNAVAILABLE except "logical partition".
Paul: If I do the same thing on the internal drive, I DO have the option to convert to FAT32.
Vijay: Does the external drive is labelled as 'Unallocated' ?
Paul: Not sure what you mean.
Vijay: Do you see the external hard drive in Partition Magic console is marked as unallocated or written as unallocated in it?
Paul: No. It's all NTFS.
Vijay: Alright.
Paul: MAXTOR250 (E:) NTFS 239,366.9
Vijay: This issue could be due to size of the Harddrive. I suggest that you diveide the hadrdrive by creating a new partition in it and then try to convert both partitions.
Paul: That won't work for me. The whole point here was to mount the drive on a wireless router. I believe that it only recognizes a single partition.
Paul: The Partition Magic box claims that it works on partitions up to 300 GB and on USB drives.
Paul: This one's only 250 GB. It's less than 35% used.
Paul: There are no open files that I know of.
Paul: Is there a way to force all files closed on the drive?
Paul: (Other than "Remove Hardware" which would keep Partition Magic from seeing it too.)
Vijay: Converting the file system will delete all the data that is present on the drive.
Paul: Not according to the documentation.
Paul: I'm not trying to reFORMAT the drive. I'm trying to convert it.
Paul: And again, the box claims "Converts partitions among FAT, FAT32, and NTFS without losing data."
Paul: Vijay: Is there second line support available? I'd like this to get escalated. Thanks.
Vijay: There may be chances of losing the data. it is recommended to backup the data before converting teh file system.
Paul: Of course.
Paul: Please connect me to the second line support people. Thanks
Vijay: Can you please be on hold while I refer to the documents. This may take 2-3 minutes.
Paul: Vijay: Are you unable to escalate this incident?
Vijay: Thank you for being online.
Vijay: You will be getting an email within 24 hours, if I escalte the issue to my supervisor. Is that OK with you?
Paul: Vijay: I logged the request on Friday. I was supposed to get a call back THAT DAY. No call on Friday. No call on Saturday. No call on Sunday.
Vijay: Are you getting the option to convert the partition to Logical while you select convert option?
Paul: Now you've tried to solve the problem and were unable to resolve it.
Paul: I'd like someone to work on this problem NOW.
Vijay: I promise you that you receive a mail within 24 hours.
Paul: Yes. As I said at the beginning "LOGICAL" is the only choice available in that dialog box.
Paul: Vijay. I have no reason to doubt you personally, but quite frankly Symantec is 0 for 1 right now on follow through and 0 for 2 on problem solving. I'd like to get this problem solved today.
Vijay: In order to convert the partition to FAT32, you can take a backup of the drive and format the drive and select File system as FAT32.
Paul: Sure. And I can drive over it with my car and go buy a new drive formatted with FAT32. I bought Partition Magic so that I wouldn't have to do that.
Vijay: I apologize for the inconvenience caused.
Paul: Thanks for the apology. But let's solve the problem.
Paul: You do have supervisors there today, don't you?
Vijay: As the supervisors are busy with resolving the other escalated issues, you would receive a mail within 24 hours.
Paul: Well, since my request is now 48 hours old, seems like I ought to be right at the top of the queue, doesn't it?
Vijay: Please note taht we do not have access to records of Voice support. Since you have contacted Chat support now with the issue, you will receive a mail within 24 hours, or you can get back to us through Chat.
Paul: Ok Vijay. Send me the email. I'll be waiting.