Customer Reviews

VCOM Partition Commander 8.0

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I purchased Partition Commander 8 to allow me to add room to a partition and possibly copy it over to another hard drive. I couldn't even get past the installation. After running Norton's Disk Doctor to ensure that the target drive was in good condition, I installed Partition Commander, rebooted and it popped into a DOS version of the program with no obvious method of control (the manual mainly covers an interface run from the desktop) and oh, yes,, and it couldn't find my OS. I'm not sure if the BIOS virus protection loused things up or not, but after I disabled it (something I should have been warned to do stuck on the cd or in some other obvious fashion - not buried within the manual) the computer wouldn't budge beyond that interface. (Weakly) in V-Communication's defense, they do prompt you to create a bootable floppy in case you run into difficulty, however I believe that I'm not alone in being unable to make a bootable floppy because I haven't used one for years and the one's I have wouldn't format anymore. Zip...yes...a bootable CD...yes, but not floppies. I had to boot off the XP CD, but even then, I couldn't bypass the System Commander DOS interface, even after replacing the boot partition. I had to reformat the entire drive.

Finally, the manual could cover troubleshooting more clearly. It mentioned booting off the OS cd and entering manual repair, but there it left me hanging at a dos prompt. I'm really disappointed in this product and would be nervous about using it in the future. I would consider Partition Magic instead. If you do purchase this for its other features, read the manual carefully and bring a floppy!

I purchased this product and installed it without any problems. When I tried to run it, the screen showed a DOS type message that read: "bad or missing command interpreter. New shell?" followed by a blinking cursor. Typing Y or N or simply "enter" did nothing. I had to re-boot the machine to regain control. The manual has nothing in it about this type of message/problem and I couldn't find anything resembling this problem on the web-site.
Finally, I sent a email (from the web-site)to the customer service people asking for advice. The email wasn't answered (or even acknowledged)
I returned the program and since I had opened the box (naturally!) I had to settle for a store credit instead of a credit card credit.

This by far is the best partition program out there for several reasons. First of all and most important it boots from the CD which gives it all the power the others lack. I work on computers for a living and if a customer has a dead system that won't boot & wants the data recovered it is a snap with this program. I just put in the CD, boot to the bootable CD, create enough space to hold the data on the hard drive as a backup partition & also use the program to copy the dead system over to the new backup partition. I then use the same program all from the boot CD & create and adjust new partitions as I see fit. REMEMBER PEOPLE, THIS IS ALL DONE WITHOUT WINDOWS, ALL DONE WITH ONLY THE BOOTABLE CD!!! Think about it. Anybody who does not like this program needs to stick with their day job and leave the thinking and partitioning to us experts. If you can't see the beauty and strength of a CD that needs no OS to run then you should not be messing around with partitions. I know of another company that uses the same bootable technique to get the job done all from CD with no OS and the program is $2,600. Anyway great program and it is too bad that people give it low marks when they know nothing about computers. I speak with 20 years experience & 5 computer languages.

After comparing various partition software to help correct issues with my PC, I chose to use V-Com's Partition Commander 8.0. During the initial partioning of the hard drive, I suffered a system crash (NOT Partition Commander's fault). When the system was rebooted my 40GB hard drive was now 20GB. Customer support provided prompt e-mail support and I was able to save both the data and the hard drive space. They provided accurate and step-by-step responses that helped save my PC. When the emergency was over, the product worked as designed and properly repartitioned the drive. I am very happy about this product and did not experience any problems with this product or customer support.

I purchased PC 8 as its blurb said it was capable of converting Dynamic disks to Basic disks. This it did OK, but when I attempted to repartition a drive with Win XP freshly installed, it crashed while attempting to verify the repartitioned disk. Have not been able to recover thus far-- very disappointing1

I purchased Partition Commander 8 not knowing what to expect. Actually have been quite pleased with it. It gave me the opportunity to install a new, larger harddrive, copy all of my first drive to the new one, partition both, experiment some, all without any loss of data or major problems. The only complaint that I have is that the manual doesn't explain some things as well as I would like and I have not accomplished a couple of things I hope to do. For one, I am running Windows XP and want to put Windows 98 and possibly Windows 95 in partitions for an unrelated project. I haven't installed either of them as of yet because it doesn't explain if it is going to an empty partition or is going to overwrite my present OS and files. I do have them copied to the second hard drive and will not lose them if it should, but could use some confirmation as to where it is going. All in all though, I am rating the program highly.

So your programs are starting to fill up your C drive and you'd like to expand the size of that partition to keep your PC working smoothly? Then turn and run away from this program like your life depended upon it. Installing the program onto my XP Media Center (with Service Pack 2) was easy. It seemed easy to ask it to resize a partition. I only knew that this was the beginning of a nightmare when after a couple minutes, the program ceased trying to resize the partition and asked me if I'd experienced a power outage or anything during the last minute. I hadn't. But metaphorical darkness came soon thereafter, as my E drive completely vanished (not damaged, just no longer seen), my boot system became completely missing (though I could manually boot up well enough to see what damage had been done), my recovery system no longer able to be located, and other vital Windows elements just not able to be found anymore - even though my documents and my programs were still safely there on the drives (at least on the drives I could still see). In short, a simple task resulted in a problem which now will likely cost me hundreds, and may even force me to wipe down my whole computer. If I had done something wrong, I wouldn't be here giving the program 1 star (more like zero stars). But instead I am here to warn you that if it doesn't do what it tries to do, the damage that it causes will cause you pain. I need to stress that I am talking about damage that it causes when it makes a mistake itself, not a mistake that you may make. It evidently isn't advanced enough a program. Stay away from it if you value your computer.

I have this product and use it very frequently to partition DOS, NTFS and Linux partitions. It works even when the partition table is messed up according the highly touted Partition Magic and it showing no partitions so it is useless. I could make primary and extended partitions with this product without any problems on the same disk. Yes it has shortcommings but not what these ignoramus maximus people with one star talking about (you can not delet a linux partition without label so you have to reformat it and give it a label). I build and repair PC's and my advice to these ignorant people first learn how to use it on PC where you can not make demage or use a professional guy who knows what to do but anyway learn how to make a boot floppy (DOS,NTFS or Linux which ever is your taste).

I bought in order to organize my hard drive by creating a few logical partitions on a 120 gig drive. I had used an earlier version for my Win 98 machine and it worked fine.

This should be a relatively simple operation and one that the designers should have easily anticipated. In this era of large drives this has to be the primary reason for buying it. I am sure the software can do this, it is just not clear how.

I had the following problems. It would not recognize my cordless mouse so I had to tab through menus. Even then it would not allow me to cut 80 gig off my C drive and use it to create a D drive

It was a waste of money and it is too late to return it.

The product installed ok. but after I added more memory to my C: drive,it would not let me boot up my OS. I call there tech suport
and after being on the phone for almost an hour, being put on hold at times they could not figure out the problem.I think I going to have to use the recovery disk which means I must start all over, It's just not worth it. I am asking for my money back just for all the time I have wasted with it.