Best replacement for Partition Magic?
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From: htfcjoef on 20 Feb 2010 14:21 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.
From: John Doe on 21 Feb 2010 12:14 htfcjoef <htfcjoef.46qhs2(a)no.email.invalid> 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.
From: John Doe on 21 Feb 2010 18:05
By the way... You do not have to specify that the copy will be hidden, Macrium Reflect makes a file instead of a partition. And later you can browse that file to copy files out of it. I just did some disk gymnastics with Macrium Reflect. Have been using my backup PC. It has a Quantum Fireball hard drive that sounds like a jet engine. Seriously wanted to replace it with my quiet SATA Raptor. The Raptor was the secondary drive in my main system, it stores the Windows partition files made by Macrium Reflect. Was able to hook it up as the secondary drive in the old Athlon XP PC (with the Fireball as primary). .... installed Disk Director to make 32 GB of free space at the beginning of the Raptor .... shut down and disconnected the Fireball primary HD, started up and booted to the Macrium Reflect restore CD .... browsed to a copy of Windows on the Raptor that was previously made from my main system SSD primary (Windows) drive .... told Macrium Reflect to decompress and place a copy of the SSD drive in the free space at the beginning of the Raptor .... I told it to use regular XP boot sector stuff instead of the same as the SSD, because I thought maybe the SSD boot stuff would be incompatible with the Raptor Booted into safe mode in order to get the old Athlon XP mainboard drivers in place. Now, temporarily, I have the whole system the way it was before, on a relatively slow PC. Speech works. Automation/scripting works. Yee Haa! -- John Doe <jdoe(a)usenetlove.invalid> wrote: > htfcjoef <htfcjoef.46qhs2(a)no.email.invalid> 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. > |