Norton Partition Magic 8.0

by Symantec

Product Features

• PQBoot for Windows: while running Windows, select which OS to run the next time the computer is rebooted.
• Enlarge NTFS partitions "hot": no rebooting is required when expanding an NTFS partition, not even the system partition.

Product Details

Product Manual [210kb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.8 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces
• ASIN: B00025O87E
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 1, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,377 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #8 in Software > Utilities > Partitions
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Partitioning your hard drive plays an essential role in maintaining your computer--preventing conflicts, protecting data, improving efficiency, and increasing performance. PowerQuest’s award-winning PartitionMagic allows you to resize, create, move, split, merge, undelete, and convert partitions quickly and easily, without harming your data. The new File Browser allows you to move files from one partition to another regardless of partition type, step-by-step wizards allow you to view changes that will be made before applying them, and DataKeeper provides automatic file backup. Includes BootMagic which enables you to safely run multiple operating systems on the same computer.

Features:

• PQBoot for Windows: while running Windows, select which OS to run the next time the computer is rebooted.
• Enlarge NTFS partitions "hot": no rebooting is required when expanding an NTFS partition, not even the system partition.
• New step-by-step wizards: create a backup partition and install another OS.
• Larger partition support: support for partition sizes up to 160 GB.
• Now supports: Linux Ext3 partitions, GRUB, USB2, and FireWire (1394).
• Install and run multiple operating systems on the same PC.
• Fine tune your system performance by converting to a more efficient file system, changing cluster sizes, or adding a Linux SWAP file partition.
• Create a separate partition for data to facilitate regular backups and separate data from operating systems and applications.
• Test new or unstable software in a separate partition.

Product Description

Symantec's Norton PartitionMagic 8.0 lets you easily organize your hard drive by creating, resizing, copying, and merging disk partitions. Separate your operating system, applications, documents, music, photos, games, and backup files to reduce the risk of data loss if your system crashes. You can use Norton PartitionMagic 8.0 to run multiple operating systems safely.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It Did What I Needed It To - With Some Help, December 26, 2005

By 

Eric Whitlow (La Crescenta, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Norton Partition Magic 8.0 (CD-ROM)

If you have a Sony Vaio this review is for you. In the past Sony has created small C:\ drives and large D:\ drives. So C:\ quickly fills with additional programs and then you need PM to fix it (move some from D:\ to C:\). But I kept getting errors with PM running in Windows. Sony was no help, and Symantec (who makes PM) had one suggestion - run it in DOS. That solved the problem and then PM works well.

Want details? start PM in windows and select "create rescue discs". These boot the computer in dos. Next (this will all make sense when you actually do it) select D:\ and tell it to shrink that partition by, say, 10GB AND specify that the 10GB be located IN FRONT of the new, smaller D:\. This places the "set aside" space before D:\, but right after C:\. Then select C:\ and tell it to make C:\ larger by 10Gb. If you don't do these steps in this order the program doesn't detect any extra space to give to C:\. It took me hours of "playing with it" to figure this out, so I hope this saves someone some grief.

166 of 184 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Does not work; Horrible Support, June 19, 2005

By 

Paul (San Mateo, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Norton Partition Magic 8.0 (CD-ROM)

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.

65 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars PartitionTragic, October 6, 2004

By 

James M. Rose - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Norton Partition Magic 8.0 (CD-ROM)

This is the absolute worst piece of software I have ever bought.
I wanted to merge 2 partitions on the same drive, so I bought this software. After installing it, I ran the utility, and when my computer rebooted I got "Error 1520: External attribute header mismatch (EA3905F0)" It tells me that I need to run chkdsk /f on the D: drive, except that the D: Drive has now dissappeared, along with all the data on the drive. So I call Symantec, but hang up after 90 minutes on hold. I try again the next day, get someone in India who repeatedly tells me that I need to run chkdsk on drive D:. I tell him it's not possible as the drive letter is gone, so he finally tells me he'll send me an email with instructions to contact Level 2 support. I get the email the next day, but all is says is to run chkdsk again. So I call Customer Support again, go through the same stuff again, and then the guy tells me he will discuss it with his supervisor. I wait for 50 minutes before finally hanging up.
I will NEVER buy anything from Symantec again. This definitely has been my worst and most frustrating computer experience ever.
And I still haven't recovered my partition...