Thursday, June 16, 2011

SOFTWARE - MiniTool's Partition Wizard Pro

This is about a hard drive management tool form MiniTool, Partition Wizard Pro.

In the past (long, long time ago; in a galaxy far, far away) I used Partition Magic from Symantec. Problem, Symantec no longer supports it, AND it does not work with today's large hard drives. In fact it can screw-up your hard drive if you [OK] at the message when you launch Partition Magic (sees a non-existing problem with the drive).

I had to find an alternative because I had replaced my old HD0 (C: & D:) with a larger one and had to resize the partitions after recovering the image backups of each drive.

The answer is MiniTool's Partition Wizard Pro. The screenshot below is of my home system with my larger HD0 (aka Disk 2), C: highlighted, after resizing.

(click for better view)

For those that notice, the "Disk" order is what Windows sees after boot. "Disk 1" (H:Games4) is a Firewire drive and Windows sees that first.

CAUTION: You should run CHKDSK on the drive after your done. Example = chkdsk c: /f/v

List of features:
  • Resize/Move Partition: Easily resize/move partition without data loss

  • Create, Format, Delete Partition

  • Convert Partition format from FAT to NTFS

  • Hide and Unhide Partitions, set active partition, label drive letter

  • Merge Partition

  • Hot Extend Partition without reboot

  • Change cluster size without data loss

  • Support Linux Ext2, Ext3, Ext4 (file systems)

  • Partition Copy: Copy entire partition to unallocated space with high performance file-by-file, moving technology; backup or move data without any data loss

  • Partition Recovery: Scan disk to restore deleted or damaged partitions

  • Hard Disk Copy: Copy an entire disk to a different diskquickly and easily with data clone technology. Backup disk data without data loss

  • Support Windows 32/64 bit Operating Systems

  • Visually demonstrate your disk/partition configuration to preview changes before apply

  • Support RAID

  • Support single disks or partitions larger than 2 TB

  • Support up to 32 hard disks within one system

  • Set partition as primary

  • Set partition as logical

  • Rebuild MBR (must use if you copy a boot partition)

  • Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk

  • Disk Surface Test

  • Partition Surface Test

  • Change Partition Serial Number

  • Change Partition Type ID

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