About Disk Partition

So to implement basic and advanced disk partitioning operations, you require special software. Here are possible tools you may use.

Built-in partitioning utility

Most operating systems use the built-in “fdisk” command to create hard disk partitions. But this solution can’t be called reliable - you may lose your data. If you resize or merge partitions, or reinstall your OS with the number of partitions different from the initial one, data loss is inevitable. Everything will be erased totally.

The “fdisk” feature is at the same time not that easy-to-use; you should be an experienced PC user to implement partitioning of your hard drive. Still it’s free and is shipped together with the majority of operating systems.

Free software

Free pieces of hard drive partitioning software have no guarantee of data integrity and have a minimum of backup features. Perhaps the most popular utilities are Gnome Partition Editor (GParted), Partition Logic and Cute Partition Manager. You can easily download them from websites.

Let’s analyze Gnome Partition Editor (GParted), for instance. It’s a Linux-based tool for newbies. The features it can boast include only create, format, delete, resize, copy, move and merge partitions. Plus it can change volume label. As you see the number of options is not that high and, once again, there is no guarantee that you’ll be able to access your data after carrying out the listed operations.

Commercial software

To have the peace-of-mind performing hard drive partitioning tasks, you need to possess truly powerful partition managers. You’ll have to pay up to $70, but you’ll obtain reliable, fast and easy-to-use partitioning software with a wide range of features. Here are the market leaders:

• Acronis Disk Director

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/

• Norton Partition Magic

http://www.symantec.com/norton/products/overview.jsp?pcid=sp&pvid=pm80

• Paragon Partition Manager

http://www.partition-manager.com/

Here is a table you can use to choose the partition commander that suits you best. Below the table you may see a brief analysis of the three pieces of hard drive partitioning software.

The three hard disk partition programs possess all necessary basic features, with only Norton Partition Magic 8.0 lacking the “recover deleted partition” option. As for advanced features, this utility can’t merge partitions with different file systems. On the other hand, Acronis Disk Director 10.0, unlike its competitors, allows you to preview changes before applying them to your disk, which adds up to the exceptional reliability of the product.Backup and restore capabilities are better with Acronis Disk Director 10.0 and Paragon Partition Manager 9.0. The latter can even copy your hard drive and create an incremental copy of your data.

If you want to use the whole range of boot management features, Acronis Disk Director 10.0 is your choice. With this multi-boot utility, you can install several operating systems on a single partition and also password-protect them.

As for the interface of the programs, well, it’s entirely up to you. Most users prefer the intuitive XP-like interface of Acronis Disk Director 10.0. Norton Partition Magic 8.0 is a little bit difficult to use and is recommended for professional PC users mostly.

The supported operating systems include all the most popular Windows OSes, with Paragon Partition Manager 9.0 and Acronis Disk Director 10.0 supporting Vista.

Acronis Disk Director 10.0 and Norton Partition Magic 8.0 have decent support services, whereas we have no corresponding information concerning Paragon Partition Manager 9.0.

The three pieces of partitioning software boast their unique features. For example, Acronis Disk Director 10.0 can install and boot an operating system from any partition of any hard disk. It also has an OS detection tool and boot virus protection.

Norton Partition Magic 8.0 offers Macromedia Flash presentation help.

And Paragon Partition Manager 9.0 allows you to work from Master CD (without install) and also has the Power Shield^TM technology, which resumes critical partitioning operations after power failure.

The last but not least, is the question of price. The cheapest partitioning tool is Paragon Partition Manager 9.0 ($39,95), followed by Acronis Disk Director 10.0 ($49,99). The most expensive partitioning utility is Norton Partition Magic 8.0 ($69,95).

With this said, you can analyze your partitioning needs and purchase the software that meets your particular demands.