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PartitionMagic 8.0

PartitionMagic 8.0

List Price: $69.95
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Won't work if you have Windows XP
Review: This program gives an error 1513 'Bad attribute position in file record' when used to try to partition a drive under Windows XP. PowerQuest help file says, "This error can occur in Windows 2000/XP because of a new file record format (called the 'i-node' format) that has been added to Windows 2000/XP. When PowerQuest products detect this new format, they interpret it as an Error 1513." ...at this point the program quits without creating the wanted partion. End of story. What good is software advertised for XP that won't finish it's job? (PartionMagic 8.0 w/update)

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Sohna R Ranjan wrote:
Review: "If you want to create partitions, then you need this software. Microsoft doesn't provide such utilities, unless you plan to re-install the OS from scratch after backing up everything on CDs. "

What the hell are you talking about? Ever heard of fdisk?

Sorry that this wasnt a real review, but after reading of all the troubles with winxp and ezbios, i'm inclined to not wast my 60 bucks.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Makes a great first impression, but a lousy housemate
Review: Both casual computer users and desktop administrators need a tool with Partition Magic's capabilities. However, after using versions 7 and 8 for about a year on two systems running Windows XP Professional with NTFS partitions, I am about to pull the plug. I am always running into problems. A non-sequential drive letter assigned using PM will decide on its own to change to a sequential letter. A partition created with drive letter "K" appears in Windows Explorer with a directory named "Drive K" just under the drive letter...but only sometimes! I have a whole disk of partitions separated by 1k unallocated spaces, and an allocation error reported for each one. Most annoyingly, if a partition has become unrecognizable for some reason to PM...even though it is still fine and usable within Windows...PM will refuse to start, giving a non-helpful message "Error 117: Partition's drive letter cannot be identified". It then is time to attempt using the scarcely-documented and user-unfriendly DOS disk editor off the boot diskette.

A friendly interface and ambitious set of useful features do not make up for constant battles such as these. Is there another product that does all this without the bugs?

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bad experience
Review: I used it once to create a simple backup FAT partition from my my main FAT partition; what could be more common? Well, it crashed all the way, so I did a low-level format and trashed it. Conclusion: do not use this software if you have any data you are willing to keep.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good product except for MBR conflicts
Review: I trust Partition Magic and Boot Magic and Drive Image, Mostly.

Very good interface, easy to understand concepts about what is happening.

However, I've installed this on two computers so far, and Win2K machine and a Win98 machine. Both computers had western digital hard drives, and both required a manual removal of "EZ-BIOS" from the master boot record. Western Digital puts that program there, and Powerquest products conflict with it to create potentially disastrous results. On one computer, I lost the entire contents of the slave drive before I figured it out. Powerquest can't handle this conflict, even though they claim they can. You must figure this out ahead of time and manually setup the large drive handling directly without letting western digital put that program there. Western Digital puts that "Ez-Bios" program in the MBR without telling you, so this isn't an easy problem.

Just the same, I would buy Powerquest products again, but with full knowledge of this problem and overcoming it. I trust Powerquest more then their competition, which I suspect to be even worse.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Do your homework first
Review: This was my first time using Partition Magic 8.0, purchased specifically for expanding C: which was still sitting at 2.0GB with only 300MB free but lots of space on D:. I'm running NT on a Gateway. Results were perfect! No data lost, quick running wizard, and better partitioning on my disk.

However! This is not just install and run the wizard. You will need a certain amount of free space in your partition in order to expand it. This meant moving files and programs, setting new preferences for NT, freeing up adjacent space first, etc. All the information you need is provided - online manual and online help are excellent. Read them first!

Norton Systemworks was especially helpful for freeing up space - defrag and for moving programs. Also be prepared to create new rescue disks when you're done.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good as long as you don't use Windows XP
Review: This program is easy to use and powerful, but Boot Magic doesn't work under Windows XP.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Partition Magic 8.0
Review: This may be one of the most versatile products we have ever used. We have made it the benchmark for our computing needs.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent
Review: This is one of the veterans of PC utilities and is quite useful especially for those with preconfigured PCs. Preparing partitions are virtually effortless and troublefree. It is also faster and more capable than its predecessors. Just keep in mind that it only works if its installed prior to running out of free installable space.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Poor support from vendor
Review: PM works adequately enough for Windows, but your mileage may vary with Linux partitions. For example, in my case, PM pops up warnings re: my Linux partitions, offers to "fix" them, but if you let it, PM instead trashes the partition information. As a result, I've had to reinstall Linux twice -- the second time to verify that it was indeed PM's fault. PowerQuest (the vendor) isn't forthcoming when it comes to acknowledging the bug or plans for a fix.

Vote with your wallet.


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