Rating: 
Summary: Beware Of Data Loss!
Review: I purchased Partition Magic to merge two NTFS partitions on my Windows 2000 machine. PM started to merge the partitions and at 98% an error message with error code was displayed. The error code was NOT listed in the PM manual's list of error codes. An incomplete error code list made it impossible to determine why PM was unable to merge two partitions that "fit" it's merging criteria. The failure of PM to completely merge the two partitions damaged my start up files and Windows would not start. Unfortunately, Amazon does not allow me to rate Partition Magic zero stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I read a lot of the complaints, but I sure don't have any. I have used this program extensively and it works great (I use win 2000) I had one problem when I first used it that crashed my system. However, after generous support from them, I discovered I had a bad piece of memory. It wasn't the program! I replaced the memory stick, and all problems were solved. I believe some of the problems people are having may be problems in their system that already exist before they use this. I love it's easy to use wizards, and I used their web site for "how to" do the nifty things you can do with this.
Rating: 
Summary: PartitionMagic=Good, BootMagic=Not Good
Review: I recently bought a Toshiba Satellite 1805-S207 laptop, and wanted to dual-boot to either Windows XP or RedHat 7.1. PartitionMagic repartitioned the disk with XP on it without any problems. The documentation was clear and informative, and carving up the disk was quick and painless. My one beef with Partition Magic was that when it created the "emergency rescue" floppies, it didn't format them or install the system boot files--it just assumes the floppies are bootable. I used some older floppies (that I later discovered cannot be made bootable) and although PartitionMagic said the emergency rescue floppies had been successfully created, when it came time to use them, they wouldn't boot my machine and I lost data. Overall though, PartitionMagic worked as advertised, and I was please and impressed with it. I cannot say the same about BootMagic. BootMagic is unable to cope with the drive geometry of my Toshiba laptop, even after spending time with PowerQuest technical support and having them send me a file containing an edited MBR which I installed on my disk using WRPROG.EXE. I still got the error #8002, a "first head" error. I need to use this machine, and I'm not willing to spend more time beta-testing this hardware/software combination for PowerQuest. Maybe I will try to get BootMagic to work in another 3-6 months, and perhaps by then PowerQuest will have ironed out the shortcomings of their software regarding my model of hard disk. That is why I gave this product a "2"--it doesn't do me any good to be able to repartition my hard disk among numerous bootable OS partitions if I can't boot to them! Without BootMagic, this product is useless to me as a multiple-OS boot manager. This is unfortunate, because if BootMagic worked for me, I'd rate this product a "5+"! But this is one of those products that is fantastic when it works, and horrible when it doesn't.
Rating: 
Summary: Does the job well
Review: I wanted to turn my W98SE desktop into a dual boot machine with WinXP on another new partition. Partition Magic was able to do this for me with ease. It first enabled me to resize my existing W98 C drive, and then create a new partition for XP. I also use BootMagic, the boot controller, that enables me to choose which system I boot into. I have found this setup great for me as I wanted to upgrade to XP but didn't want to go through the hassle of upgrading everything at once with my existing software. This way I can effectively run my PC's systems in parallel as I check on various options for completing my XP environment. The one caveat that people should be aware of is that I know people that have had absolute disasters using PM7.0 when they installed and ran the program from their existing C drive. I would recommend users running PM 7.0 from the rescue disks (and booting from them). I had to do it this way since I had Norton System works on my PC, which can conflict with PM 7.0 installed. You get all the same functionality that you would running from the OS but you might lose the wizard interface.
Rating:
Summary: Worked for me!
Review: I was a bit nervous after reading the reviews of those who had problems. But I partitioned two drives (one new and unformatted; one with an OS) in a matter of minutes, and everything went just as described. Could not be happier! The interface was clear and easily understood, and though a relative novice, I breezed through it. The price is kind of stiff for how many times I'll use it (never again..?) but it worked for me and I probably saved hours of work
Rating:
Summary: Worked the first time.
Review: I was running out of room on my system drive (C:) after installing XP, especially after turning on the system recovery process that eats up alot of HD space. I had plenty of room on my other two partitions, so I purchased Partition Magic. It installed easy, and was very easy to use. Do back up before you rearrange or change your system. Every machine is different. I have used it twice to reallocate my free space between partitions with no problems at all.
Rating:
Summary: An essential tool of mine for literally years
Review: I've been using PartitionMagic since the early days. I have never had any problems with it, including with this latest version. I've used the product under many OSs, and couldn't imagine living without it. In other words: Essential stuff imho. And yes, I do frequently buy multiple extra disks for my machines, and I STILL use PartitionMagic.
Rating:
Summary: A must for serious computer users and WinXP upgrades
Review: I've used Partition Magic since version 3.0. Partition Magic 7.0 is now WinXP compatable and supports hard drives up to 80 GB. 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 (preview version) 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.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic for Techies, not for kids
Review: I've used some version or another of this for a number of years and have never been disappointed with the product, the improvments made with each new version, or the customer service. I have resized, moved, merged, created and generally messed with thousands of partitions on hundreds of machines with this product and never lost a byte of data. Having said all that, this is absolutely a "Don't try this at home kids!" product. If you aren't comfortable swimming at the deep end of the PC technology pool, stay clear of this or any other drive partitioning product. Let Windows partition your drives automatically in accordance with Microsoft standard thinking and sleep soundly at night knowing your machine is working properly. Despite what the Powerquest marketing folks say, if you use this product incorrectly, you will wipe all the data and programs from your fixed disk. However, if you are a power user who knows how partitions are set up (or are willing to take the time to learn, because this software will teach you if you want to know) than this is the FIRST and ONLY product to buy.
Rating:
Summary: Don't even THINK of running this on Windows XP!
Review: If I could give this software monstrosity zero stars, I'd gladly do it! What a colossal waste of time and money! When Norton Ghost asked me for 22 blank CD-ROMs, I knew I had a problem with my backup strategy. So I thought to myself, "I'll make an extra partition, so Ghost will only back up the essential stuff!" And what better choice than Partition Magic, the software I've heard so many good things about over the years? Ha!!! By the time this diabolical "easy to use" program got done with my hard drive, there was nothing left but smoldering ruins. I'm sure atom bombs are easy to use, too, but most of us won't like the results! I thought I did everything right. I program computers for a living. I'm supposed to be pretty smart about these things. I created an emergency boot disk just like Partition Magic suggested. I used its pretty graphical interface to decide how to split the hard drive. Just point and click! Then it insisted on rebooting before it could do its dirty work, and the fun began! Soon enough I needed that boot disk, but it didn't seem to do any good. Most of the options on the MS-DOS version of Partition Magic are grayed out. I haven't done anything this "down and dirty" on a computer since the 1980's! So I had to rebuild my system. At least my original three-CD Ghost backup worked, so I didn't have to reinstall Windows from scratch. Still, it took me over a week to get everything back the way I had it. Needless to say, after that all-nighter I wasn't about to consider contacting tech support. They only get one chance with my machine, and they blew it big time! So I threw the software and its packaging into a lead-lined box with the radiation symbol plastered on the side, and buried it out of sight in a Utah salt mine! OK, not literally. But I'd sure like to! Save your sanity. If your computer and your budget allow, just go out and get an external hard drive. I did, and I'm very happy. Now I just have to work on my backup strategy ....
| 
