Best replacement for Partition Magic?

This might be slightly OT, but probably not much.

I relied on Partition Magic for years, but am a little wary of it now
since Norton (Symantec) got their grubby hands on it. Their programs
seem to scatter files all over the hard drive that are next to
impossible to get rid of completely. What's the best partition
program to use other than PM?

Thanks for your help.

Larc



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Forget partitions, way to dangerous.

Use File Disk Images, and the File Disk tool, at least, that is, if you
using Windows.

Check it out.

Bye,
Skybuck.

In article , Larc says...
This might be slightly OT, but probably not much.

I relied on Partition Magic for years, but am a little wary of it now
since Norton (Symantec) got their grubby hands on it. Their programs
seem to scatter files all over the hard drive that are next to
impossible to get rid of completely. What's the best partition
program to use other than PM?

BootitNG. Just don't install it to the HDD. Comes as a small ISO which
creates a bootable disk.



--
Conor

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looking good either. - Scott Adams

"Larc" wrote

I relied on Partition Magic for years, but am a little wary of it now
since Norton (Symantec) got their grubby hands on it. Their programs
seem to scatter files all over the hard drive that are next to
impossible to get rid of completely. What's the best partition
program to use other than PM?

Why not an old, pre-Symantec version of PM? V7 works fine!

Get GPARTED (GNU Partition Editor). Download the .iso (free) and burn
to CD. Boot from that and you can do whatever you need. It works
great and the price can't be beat.

AD

On Mar 14, 9:01*am, Larc wrote:
This might be slightly OT, but probably not much. *

I relied on Partition Magic for years, but am a little wary of it now
since Norton (Symantec) got their grubby hands on it. *Their programs
seem to scatter files all over the hard drive that are next to
impossible to get rid of completely. *What's the best partition
program to use other than PM?

Thanks for your help.

Larc

* * *§§§ - Change planet to earth to reply by email - §§§

Larc wrote:

This might be slightly OT, but probably not much.

I relied on Partition Magic for years, but am a little wary of it
now since Norton (Symantec) got their grubby hands on it. Their
programs seem to scatter files all over the hard drive that are
next to impossible to get rid of completely. What's the best
partition program to use other than PM?

Probably Acronis Disk Director. I bought version 10 from Newegg for
$35 US total. I am using it on Windows XP SP2, don't know how well
the current version 10 works with Vista. Disk Director is easier to
use than Partition Manager (my last disk manager, and PartitionMagic
before that) or Partition Commander, apparently from the same
company. Disk Director appears much more capable and it is more
intuitive IMO with a better user interface than those.

Since you're familiar with disk management software, of course you
know the potential hazards and you know enough to keep removable
media copies of any important files from your hard drive. Also, make
the optional boot media or a clone of the program disk if it
functions as a boot disk. Don't get rid of your Partition Magic boot
disk. I find having boot disks from more than one publisher/program
can make unexpected problems much easier to solve.

Good luck and have fun.













Thanks for your help.

Larc



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I've heard consistently good things about Gparted (and the
GUI for it, Parted Magic). Have you ever used it to move
("slide") a partition that had been created by the Vista installer?

I did. Remember to defrag the partition you wanna shrink.

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I actually went with two
programs: GParted and Disk Director. GParted will be especially good
if something happens to keep me from booting XP. But Disk Director
seems to be more flexible if I can make changes from within XP.

Thanks again!

Larc



§§§ - Change planet to earth to reply by email - §§§

I still use PQ/N/S Partition Magic from time to time with WinXP
systems.
But it does , at times, want to "correct" LPA setting and that really
screws me up. I think of PM as a religion. All disks must be
'blessed'
by PM at its standalone initialization or I backup and redo all.

I've come to start using Disk Director from Acronis. It's OK.
After so many years of using PM I find DD to look ALMOST identical
in options and interface but a little harder and annoying to use.

It doesn't have the same safeguards that PM has. It lets me get away
with "bad" LPAs. I haven't figured out who's right but favor DD since
it's uptodate.

A really annoying issue is hiding spare "C:" drives. IT DOESN'T!
So if you're switching active partitions you must remember to HIDE
the previous active and also if need be the third one.

So DD obvious doesn't have a 'rules' table.

It asks some silly question about auto vs. manual and then proceeds
to do things in one extreme handholding or the opposite "shoot
yourself" mode.

So I'm glad I'm not running any W95/w98/ME stuff anymore because those
guys get real messed up when you've got the extra "C:" drive visible.

Norton/Symantec is STUPID! They buy out a great company/product
and then let it die a prolonged death. I would have gladly paid $20 or
so
every year for an update that kept up with the OSes, etc.

Now I've got Acronis bugging me every 7 months to upgrade for $30!
Yeah, right .....

Joe.F
P.S I don't feel comfortable using a "free" product to do such
dangerous work as
re-partitioning.

htfcjoef wrote:

A really annoying issue is hiding spare "C:" drives. IT
DOESN'T! So if you're switching active partitions you must
remember to HIDE the previous active and also if need be the
third one.

I don't feel comfortable using a "free" product to do such
dangerous work as re-partitioning.

I have been doing spare "C:" drives since Windows 95, using all
disk managers. For that particular purpose of making a backup copy
of the Windows partition, so far, apparently the free Macrium
Reflect does a better job than any paid-for software. It
compresses the image and does not even have to exit Windows, and
it accurately restores an image (from a boot CD). I use the
recommended option to restore the HD boot table, and it has worked
every time so far (including on an SSD drive). The restore takes
longer than with other software, but since restores are done less
frequently than backups, and I just find something else to do like
when doing any other lengthy PC task, that is not a problem here.