which partition manager is best ?

[MovieKing]

With Win98, I used PartitionMagic 7.0 for managing my HDDs quite successfully. Some months ago I migrated to Win XP - and found out that PartionMagic tends to corrupt very NTFS partitions quite frequently (i.e. I simply lost several data partitions). From other forums, I learnt that XP's built-in partition manager should be first choice, and I appreciate this as a stable, mature product. The only function I'm missing there is the possibility to resize and shift partions without loosing their data.

So here's my question: What is the best tool to use for just reseizing and moving partions ? (preferrable freeware, my budget is rather limited).

Thanks for any advice.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Partitioning may not be worth the hassle. I definitely think it isn't worth messing with on a regular basis. Take a look at this FAQ on partitioning. Not quite what you're looking for, but worth a look. Good luck.

BTW, loose is not the word you were looking for.

 

[Slickone]

That article is pretty old, dated before XP was released, and I only skimmed it, but isn't it only about trying to get better performance? What about if you need to partition for other reasons? I want to, for dual boot purposes, and to separate OS/games and pics/mp3s, etc.

But that's the first I've heard of them getting corrupt, and everyone on AT seems to have nothing but good things to say about Partition Magic, Ghost, etc. And those were older versions. Do you think the newest versions still corrupt often too?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Slickone
That article is pretty old, dated before XP was released, and I only skimmed it, but isn't it only about trying to get better performance? What about if you need to partition for other reasons? I want to, for dual boot purposes, and to separate OS/games and pics/mp3s, etc.

Obviously there are reasons to partition. You take the good with the bad, weigh your options, blah blah blah.

But that's the first I've heard of them getting corrupt, and everyone on AT seems to have nothing but good things to say about Partition Magic, Ghost, etc. And those were older versions. Do you think the newest versions still corrupt often too?

It's probably because XP wasn't out when PM 7 was released, IIRC.

 

[MovieKing]

Of course, you can do everything with one partition. What I didn't tell you however, is the amount of data, I'm juggling - one of my main applications is video editing. Just yesterday I added another 250 GB HDD, so now I have 820 GB.

Maybe it's just emotional, but I do like to have my data clearly separated from all the incredible rubbish Win XP and every other installed application are adding to my disk. Not sure if anyone else is understanding all that stuff - I'm definitely not. (Ironically: what I hate is Microsoft's view: "your computer is all ours, but well ... here's a tiny directory called 'MyFiles' where you can play around if you really need to". My view is the oldfashioned "I payed for this PC, so it's mine - if all that other stuff really needs disc space, well, then I'd give them one directory 'System' where they all can hide"). As I said, simply emotional - I know that these are not hard arguments at all.

But today I just learned a real hard argument for separating system and data into dedicated partitions. I was playing around with XPprof's backup program and found out that if you want to backup the system drive with the option of system recovery (using that nice floppy Backup generates), than you have to backup the entire partition - 820 GB (if that were all on one sinle HDD). No option left to select a subset of that data.

Concerning PartionMagic - it all worked perfectly with FAT, I really loved it. But with NTFS it's a nightmare. Maybe that's due to the large partitions I have (the big one for video footage is 500 GB !), Partition Magic 7.0 specifies up to 60GB or so, but I definitely had trouble with partitions as small as 10GB or less. And others had too.

That's why I'm looking for a tiny little tool for moving and reseizing...

 

[MovieKing]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
It's probably because XP wasn't out when PM 7 was released, IIRC.

..maybe, but they marketed PartionMagic with the label "XP and NTFS compatible"

 

[ActuaryTm]

There are other solutions. Both Paragon and Acronis typically make excellent products, though I have only used these solutions on a very limited basis (I personally tend to agree with n0cmonkey on partitioning often).

 

[firerock]

Partition Magic screwed up my partition twice! I couldn't even recover the lost partition by using their rescue feature....pathetic!!! Since then, I moved onto Acronis product and I've been very satisfied. Also, PM some how couldn't partition one of my large drive (200gb) and spit an error code. Yes, I've the most updated PM, but it still doesn't work, but Acronis works perfectly. Acronis Diskdirector is an awesome package.

 

[MovieKing]

@firerock,

thanks for your hint, I'll have a look into that acronis stuff...

 

[Nothinman]

As I said, simply emotional

So stop complaining and just stop using Windows.

Concerning PartionMagic - it all worked perfectly with FAT, I really loved it. But with NTFS it's a nightmare. Maybe that's due to the large partitions I have (the big one for video footage is 500 GB !), Partition Magic 7.0 specifies up to 60GB or so, but I definitely had trouble with partitions as small as 10GB or less. And others had too.

I've used PQMagic on dozens, maybe hundreds, of machines at work and I can count the number of times it's caused me problems on one hand. There have been instances where it wouldn't help me fix another problem, but it was rarely the cause. And most of those machines used NTFS.

 

[CQuinn]

Originally posted by: MovieKing

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
It's probably because XP wasn't out when PM 7 was released, IIRC.

..maybe, but they marketed PartionMagic with the label "XP and NTFS compatible"

IIRC, Partition Magic 7 is 2000 and NTFS compatible, Partition Magic 8 is XP and NTFS compatible.

I'm with Nothinman on this, although I need to try DiskDirector when I get a chance, I can also count on
on less than one hand the number of times I've had partitioning problems that I could trace back to
PM, and most of those are because I didn't bother to check the drive out myself for problems ahead of time.