PartitionMagic 8.0 Complete package

...memory.

However PartitionMagic really is the exception to the rule. Now first let's get back to the fundamentals. What does partitioning software do and why do you need it? Well, partitioning software enables you to split your hard drive into smaller sections, so that it seems you have more than one hard drive. There are many areas in which this can be useful, on my home machine I have 3 partitions, and these are for XP, Vista and ...
...One very useful feature that PartitionMagic contains is the ability to boot from the BIOS, this really makes life easy when for some reason you can't boot into any operating systems. You can quickly create a new partition, install an OS and get all your files back.

BootMagic is also included with PartitionMagic, this is basically a bootstrapper that enables you to easily boot into different Operating Systems on start-up instead of ... more

First things first, I want to make desperately clear that I am not a fan of Norton. They make extremely cumbersome software that uses up all of your system resources and memory.

However PartitionMagic really is the exception to the rule. Now first let's get back to the fundamentals. What does partitioning software do and why do you need it? Well, partitioning software enables you to split your hard drive into smaller sections, so that it seems you have more than one hard drive. There are many areas in which this can be useful, on my home machine I have 3 partitions, and these are for XP, Vista and Documents. When I boot up my machine I can choose from either XP or Vista, the when I have booted up on either I can access my Documents through D:\ (most likely).

So essentially if I decide I want to format XP and Vista my documents are still held on the computer, yet there is no operating system. Then I can install an Operating System and all my Documents will still be there.

This really saves time as there is no need to back-up to DVD or an external hard drive. So what are your options? Well you can select from NTFS (I recommend for XP), FAT32, FAT and Ext2, Ext3 and Swap for Linux partitions.

The wizards are useful; they quickly help you carry out your desired task without technical know-how. One very useful feature that PartitionMagic contains is the ability to boot from the BIOS, this really makes life easy when for some reason you can't boot into any operating systems. You can quickly create a new partition, install an OS and get all your files back.

BootMagic is also included with PartitionMagic, this is basically a bootstrapper that enables you to easily boot into different Operating Systems on start-up instead of having to boot into PartitionMagic and set a particular OS partition active.

Sorry if I am talking rubbish, I'll get back to basics. There is also another brilliance of this software; it will run on virtually any machine. It requires 50MB or there about of hard disk space and will install on XP/2000/NT/Me/98SE/98/95 and a machine 10 years old. Unfortunately I tried running it on Vista and it wasn't to happy about it, so if you are using Vista you can only use the BIOS bootable section of the CD.

So let's recap, this software lets you organise your data more powerfully, by doing this you are securing your data from the possibility of your OS drive crashing because of a virus or a bad software installation. The partition acts as another hard drive meaning that problems seldom overlap onto another drive.

So what available operating systems are there and which ones can be useful? Well, in my mind the perfect hard drive composition would be 4 partitions:
- Windows Vista Ultimate (NTFS)
- Windows XP Professional (NTFS)
- Linux Distribution (Either SuSE, Mandriva or Fedora) (Ext2/Ext3)
- Documents (FAT32)

Remember, if you are planning to only use the BIOS bootable section then you can just download the trial. But if you want to install it to an operating system then you will have to buy it.

I hope I have been helpful in your decision to purchase PartitionMagic and to partition your hard drive. Thanks.
Alex Hawke  

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