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(More customer reviews)One of my friends and co-workers recently sold me a retail box of "Partition Manager 10" for a fraction of what of he paid for it. He didn't feel as if he would continue to need it after he was set up. Since I was curious if it could be a decent swiss-army-knife partitioning tool running under Windows, I gave him a few bucks for it.
Like so many others, I also had a few versions of "PowerQuest Partition Magic" during the course of many years. "PowerQuest Partition Magic" was an absolutely excellent program and it was always one of the main programs to have in your toolkit. Going way back, prior to "PowerQuest Partition Magic", I had been using a DOS GNU partitioning tool called "FIPS". "FIPS" did allow non-destructive partitioning, but it was not intuitive. (I.e., you had to manually define partition start and end cylinders.) It worked, but even then it was very archaic to use. Needless to say, the arrival of "Partition Magic" was more than welcomed. "Partition Magic" made the mundane task of partitioning disks even enjoyable, well almost enjoyable. "Partition Magic" was able to do everything that I asked for it do due over the years. If it was physically possible and within the "rules" of HDD, "Partition Magic" could do it. It was that simple. Unfortunately, PowerQuest and "Partition Magic" would be acquired and borged by Symantec. Symantec dropped "Partition Magic" all together. It hasn't been updated since 2003, even though they still sell it. "Partition Magic" will not work in Vista. Unfortunately, "Partition Magic" now makes the criteria for obsolete.
Fortunetly, there are several (free and commercial) alternatives to turn to. A little warning first: there is also a lot of deliberately malicious scumware out there masquerading as partition management tools. They capitalize on the fact that partition management tools are a popular tool to have and the uninformed may just google for "free partition software". Some of the scumware may actually do it what it claims to do, but it is also going to install malware. The number of legit, commercial, and worthwhile partition management tools could be count on one hand, with a finger to spare. Paragon Partition Manager 10 is one of these tools. "Acronis Disk Manager", a competing product to "Paragon Partition Manager", is debatable. Like the other reviewer, I would also be very hesitant about Acronis based on the number of negative reviews. When it comes to software that does partitioning, you must be absolutely confident in the product. The result of any partition management tool that has even the slightest oversight could be disastrous. Yes, it is always a good idea to back up a partition before modifying it, but in practice do most people ever do this? I admit to having never backed up a HDD or partition before doing any HDD modifications.
Before I get to "Paragon Partition Manager 10", I want to mention the free alternatives that are available that are not scumware. If you only plan on using a partition management tool for Microsoft Windows (or several Microsoft Windows versions on same PC), take a look at "Partition Wizard Home Edition". It a free partitioning tool that works very well for working with Windows partitions. I have it installed along with "Partition Manager 10" and it works very well. I reduced the size of my Windows Vista 64 partition with it and it worked extremely well. The interface is also very similar to "Partition Magic", so it will extremely familiar to work with. However, "Partition Wizard" does not allow you to work with partitions other than FAT/FAT32/NTFS/etc. It does not work with Linux ext2/ext3/ext4/ReiserFS/etc. Of course, you can always use it just to create free space in preparation for installing other OS's though. That said, I would still recommend it for Windows users. It is an excellent program for working with just FAT/FAT32/NTFS/etc partitions.
To work with Linux partitions, the choice is obvious: "GNU Parted". For those that have used "GNU Parted", I would be preaching to the choir if I went into a long tangent on "GNU Parted". (If you are Windows-only, unfortunetly, "GNU Parted" can not modify Windows partitions.)
Now I finally can get to "Paragon Partition Manager 10". I gave it a few rounds and found it to be a decent, polished, application. I gave it a round of going through the process of reducing my active Windows Vista 64 partition, necessitating a reboot and the loader process that works similar to "Partition Magic" and "Paragon Partition Manager 10". Unlike "Partition Manager" and "Paragan Partition Manager 10", you are loaded into a simple GUI environment during this process. While unnecessary, this does show that the developers were keen on putting extra polish on this product. The process went smooth, however was not as quick as "Partition Wizard Home Edition" when I put it through the same process. Once complete, after rebooting back into Windows Vista 64, "Paragon Partition Manager" had caused Windows to go through a chkdsk process during the loading of Windows. "Partition Wizard Home Edition" had not caused this. I wasn't too overly concerned, but this is something that will get your attention. "Paragon Partition Manager 10" also lets your explore other partitions, similar to how "Partition Magic" used to. Although not as intuitive as "Partition Magic", I was able to read files that were in my Linux partitions. You can read and write to all other Microsoft Windows partitions as well, of course. This could be handy. I did find a use for it a number of times back when I used to use "Partition Magic". The deal breaker, however, with "Paragon Partition Manager 10" came when I tried to move and resize Linux ext3/ext4/ReiserFS logical partitions. While it works with Linux primary partitions, "Paragon Partition Manager 10" does not work with Linux logical partitions. This was a major limitation for me and likely will be other multi-OS users. Having Windows Vista 64, Slackware Linux 64, Suse Linux 64, Ubuntu Linux 64, and FreeBSD 64 all installed on my laptop, not being able to work with Linux partitions in logical drives is a serious limitation. With HDD drivers becoming so monstrously large, even single OS users are finding that the 4 primary drive limitation necessitates their need for logical drives as well.
Conclusion: "Paragon Partition Manager 10" does work and does work well, minus the serious limitation that I found with it (not being able to modify Linux partitions in logical drives). Over all, I did find "Paragon Partition Manager 10" to a very polished product, minus the help system which definitely could be improved. If "Paragon Partition Manager 10" was able to work with Linux logical partitions, I would have considered it the new "Partition Magic". It would then be perfect. Even then, it is still difficult to absolutely recommend this product when there are free alternatives available. Microsoft Windows-only users will find "Partition Wizard Home Edition" (free) will do everything they need. Dual booting users using both Microsoft Windows and Linux will find the combination of "Partition Wizard Home Edition" and "GNU Parted" will do everything they need.
My four stars for "Paragon Partition Manager 10" are to reflect the quality of the product as I found it to be. I was tempted to give it only three stars due to the major limitation that I had with it, however went with four due to the overall effort that the developers put into it. It is four starts because "I like it", however I doubt that I will be using it in the future. Others will likely find also that it is a good program, but not needed as there are free alternatives ("Partition Wizard Home Edition", "GNU Parted") that completely fill their needed.
*** "Paragon Partition Manager 10": Works with Windows and (primary drive) Linux partitions. Sadly, does not work with Linux partitions on logical drives.
*** "Partition Wizard Home Edition": Free. Works with Windows partitions. Does not work with Linux partitions.
*** "GNU Parted": Free. Works with Linux partitions. Does not work with Windows partitions.
*** Having both "Partition Wizard Home Edition" and "GNU Parted" will likely do everything that you need.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Paragon Partition Manager 10 Personal Edition (previous version)
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