Is there magic |
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by Susan Easter and JeffBoggan |
The first thing I noticed was a small but informative manual. It is very easy to read and the important stuff is quickly found. Everything you need is at your fingertips. If you are new to the world of partitioning hard drives, there is a very good chapter clearly explaining it in a concise manner. There were only two diskettes so installation was quite fast and smooth. I didn't have to do much more than answer a question or two. The real test came next.
After getting it up on my desktop, I was able to go right into the program. I had a backup on tape. The menu is very readable...similar to OS/2's PM FDisk screen, but nicer. I was able to go to disk two, and move partitions around immediately.
I wanted to shrink my second drive partitions, F: and G:, and increase H:. I went into the Config.sys and moved my swap file to a different partition for the duration of testing. I was set.
You have the choice of using your mouse, keyboard or combination of the two. There is a graphic representation of the partitions and a text representation on the lower portion of the screen.
I highlighted the partition I wanted to shrink (F: was first). A new window came up, with arrows at the top, and a bar that represented the size of my partition and the amount of change I would be able to make. Since my swap file is about 40 MB, the minimum shows to be around 42.x MB as the minimum size. I clicked on the left arrow, and shrunk the partition from 100 to 70. The leftover space becomes an unformatted section of hard drive.
One of the things I found fun, and fascinating, was the ability to move my partitions around. I moved the H: partition to the front of the free space, and then expanded the size of the drive into the free space that was left. All that tinkering and there was not a single byte out of kilter.
When you do this with your partitions, there is a warning that while Partition Magic is made to keep your data safe, there is a chance you could lose data. I didn't lose any data and everything ran fine after I changed all my partitions around! The main thing to remember, is that after changing your partitions, you need to reboot so that your operating system will recognize the change.
I moved my partitions around several times, changing the formatting from FAT to HPFS, checking drives, expanding and shrinking partitions, and no matter what I did, it worked exactly as promised.
I only have a few programs that I would never part with. Partition Magic made it onto this list. This utility can do things that fit right in with my never-ending need to tinker...and enhance.
Susan Easter, a HAL-PC member, is on temporary assignment in Ohio. She maybe contacted at susan.easter@yob.com/.
I got IBM's OS/2 Warp in February '95 and the beta version of Win95 in April 1995. This is when I learned about partitioning my hard drive with MS-DOS FDisk. Using FDisk seemed simple enough; you just back up your hard drive, reformat the drive, and then set your primary partition, extended partition, and the logical partitions within the extended partition. Next, reboot the system and reinstall the backup. This process shouldn't take more than a day or so. Well, after several attempts, I finally got things functioning again.
After I installed a later version of Win95, I spent another entire weekend backing up data, resetting the partitions, reformatting, and reinstalling programs.
We ran into some snags and found I needed to create a two meg boot sector for the OS/2 Boot Manager. I was not ready to back up and repartition my hard drive to install OS/2 Warp. Then Robert Gunn said, "Just use Partition Magic." Partition Magic? It will repartition your hard drive without having to go through all the FDisk drudgeries. I loaded the program and shrunk the C: drive by two megs. The whole process took less than 15 minutes. Wow, I was very impressed.
Now I repartition my hard drives whenever I like and I don't need an entire weekend to do it. Partition Magic 2.0 makes it even easier. (The program is now on one floppy disk.)
I was asked to make a presentation at the June Win95 SIG and I thought this program would be most useful because: (Note: It can be used with Win 3.x.)
First reason - Partition Magic allows you to have up to four primary partitions. You can have your native Win 3.1 on one primary partition and Win95 on another. Partition Magic gives you the option of setting either the Win 3.1 primary partition active or the Win95 primary partition active. This allows both to coexist on your hard drive without one conflicting with the other.
Second reason - You can divide a large drive into smaller, more manageable "sections" (smaller sized hard drives - referred to as "partitioning"). The benefits are:
1. It simplifies backups. Related or similar files are on one "drive" or partition. You no longer need to search and sort your other drives for particular files.
2. Defragmenting (rearranging files so the entire file is located in adjacent sectors on your drive) time can be reduced because all your active data and active application files are on different drives (your active data files become fragmented more frequently).
3. You can create a drive for sensitive files, then hide the drive using Partition Magic.
4. You will also "gain" more space on your hard drive. Resizing a one+ gig drive will reduce the size of its clusters (cluster is the smallest unit of storage space on a hard drive). Partitioning a hard drive or partition can recover 25 to 40% of "wasted" space...and you can manually change the cluster size of your drives.
5. Virus protection! By partitioning your hard drive you limit the area that will be affected if you're attacked by a virus. Most virus programs attack the boot sector of your hard drive. (This is not entirely accurate. Some viruses attack most any file that changes or is executed during a computer operation. Editor)
6. You can change the size of any partitions without affecting the files. As your needs change, you may require different size partitions. It will support up to eight physical drives.
7. It does not affect your basic OS partitioning scheme. There is no proprietary software involved and it is operated from a floppy disk.
PowerQuest offers great support for their product. Their website is http://www.powerquest.com, sales group at sales@powerquest.com and tech support at support@powerquest.com. Registered owners can download the latest upgrade from their web site for free.
A special thanks to Gene Barlow, PowerQuest's User Group Specialist. His User Group presentation package provided key elements for the presentation at our Win95 SIG.
Jeff Boggan is a HAL-PC member and Co-coordinator of the Win95 SIG.
NOTE: There are two packages. One, for about $50, is for both Windows 3.x and 95. Another, about $67, is for both Windows and OS/2.
E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.
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