The Good
* Straightforward and fairly easy to use.
* Has the typical partition management tools (resize, format, delete, etc.).
* Supports Windows and Linux filesystems (FAT, FAT32, NTFS, EXT2/EXT3).
* Supports internal and external hard drives/devices.
* Users can change the letter and name of a partition, convert primary partition to logical partition and vice versa, and hide/unhide partitions.
* Users can copy a whole hard drive or partition.
* Supports hardware RAID.
* Supports MBR and GPT volumes.
* Works on hard disks of upto 2 TB in size.
* Has "error checking" features.
* Has the ability to copy dynamic disks.
* Has the ability to recover deleted/lost partitions.
* Has the ability to defrag partitions.
* Has the abilty to "rebuild MBR".
* Has the ability to securely delete/wipe hard drives and partitions.
* Users can create a Linux-based bootable disk.
* Users can password protect the program.

The Bad
* No support for Mac filesystems or EXT4 Linux filesystem.
* The defrag feature does not allow the user to view any sort of "analysis" before conducting the actual defrag.
* Users can only defrag single partitions at a time.
* Only supports Linux-based bootable disk; does not support WinPE.
* Lacks the ability to create a bootable USB/flash drive.
* Bootable disk has some limitations, such as no defrag feature.
* The program window always opens up fully maximized.

Free Alternatives
EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition
Paragon Partition Manager Free Edition

For final verdict, recommendations, and full review please click here.

Ashraf  –  14 years ago  –  ¿Te ha parecido útil este comentario? si | no (+123)

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used the free d/l version to save a 160 gb firewire hdd that had data, programs, files, docs and tns of other things collected over several years. the mbr (master boot record) for the drive had become corrupted and the drive no longer showed under my computer but was shown under device manager. was able to repair the mbr, reover all the files to dvd's and reformatted the drive which works perfectly once again. recommend this to anyone who wants to save any hdd if it can be saved by repairing the mbr. top not h software, in my humble opinion. get it while you can. it's worth having.

charles  –  14 years ago  –  ¿Te ha parecido útil este comentario? si | no (+43)

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EASEUS Partition Master is a very nice app that differs from Paragon's partition software mainly by sticking just to partitions, i.e. Paragon often combines backup, partitioning, & sometimes virtualization all in one application. I have & use both, since in my experience Paragon's apps can sometimes try to be a bit *too* helpful, e.g. using Paragon software to copy or restore a partition to a virtual disk in 7, Paragon's app automatically adds it to 7's boot menu -- I don't want that, so I'll use EASEUS instead [it's not a huge deal to remove that .vhd from 7's boot menu using EasyBCD, but when you can save a step, why not?]. Otherwise when it comes to working with partitions they pretty much do the same things, & many (most?) will just notice that EASEUS Partition Master has a more "down-to-business" look to it. Checking the EASEUS version comparison -- http://goo.gl/tQM4 -- with Partition Master Pro you get a bootable CD -- since today's GOTD will only install today, keep that CD in a safe place & you can (re)install the free version if you ever have (or want) to. Partition Master 6.51 Pro updates/adds quite a few files [200+] vs. the last version I had installed, 6.1.1, & as the GOTD description notes, adds 6 new features -- IMHO the most noteworthy is working with Flash memory devices [USB sticks, SD cards etc.], while the new Disk Surface Check bothers me... if your hard drive manufacturer has a repair utility [like Seagate's], it might actually repair a bad cluster(s), but once it's marked as bad in Windows [if/when a Windows app does a disk surface check & finds a bad sector] NTFS file tables will *Never* forget, & several disk utilities like defraggers will refuse to run [the easiest cure I've found or figured out is to copy the partition, which unlike cloning or backup/restore creates a new NTFS file table, but you need the available disk space to copy your partition to, & it of course takes some time].

I did have one problem installing/running EASEUS Partition Master 6.5.1 Pro in 7 ult SP1 RC 64... I uninstalled the old version 6.1.1, deleted the program's folder [it wasn't removed because it contained a log file], & installed today's GOTD, finding that it would only run once until a re-boot, with error messages that the app was still running (it wasn't). Installation adds 5 files to Windows' system folder: setupempdrvXXX.exe, EuGdiDrv.sys, EuEpmGdi.dll, epmntdrv.sys, & BootMan.exe [the only new 1 of the 5], & these account for the bulk of the ~100 new registry entries... however if you're updating to a newer version like I did, the net difference [before/after] amounts to a new uninstall key. The program's folder takes up ~75 MB with 708 files, 48 folders, & includes the boot CD ISO [~30 MB] that you can delete after burning if need be.

When you work with a *System* hard drive/partition [the one Windows is installed to], you very often can't be running Windows from that drive/partition -- you have to boot into another OS on some other drive or device. Paragon has both *nix & WinPE boot discs/USB devices, as does EASEUS -- for EASEUS Partition Master WinPE see http://goo.gl/KTYH6 ... I don't know if GOTD users qualify (you have to contact support for a URL), & reading on that page the list of stuff EASEUS doesn't recommend doing with their WinPE version, I'm not sure you'd be *that* interested. That said, *If* the problem I had today in 7 (requiring a re-boot) was an anomaly [it's never happened to me before], the several WinPE-type boot discs/devices I've used all create a RAM disk (a virtual hard drive in memory) that they actually run from -- once you boot into them, it's not that big of a deal to install & then use an app like Partition Master. OTOH Acronis is much more popular & often already included in many of the WinPE-type setups you can download (Paragon comes in a somewhat distant 2nd), and many of these downloaded setups already include other partitioning utilities, so again I'm not sure you'd want to bother. Many people just stick to the tried & true Linux boot CDs with GParted [like this one: http://goo.gl/zQpz ]. If you have special requirements, e.g. a RAID drive setup, that can narrow your choices, but for basic partition creation & sizing [the stuff IMHO most users are interested in] pretty much all of these apps will do the job.

As virtualization has started to become more popular, lead by Microsoft it's also become more popular to virtualize your old Windows install so you can run it in the new version (usually 7). The BIG problem with that is you usually need to get rid of all that free space on the original system drive/partition... EASEUS Partition Master (& similar) can do that, shrinking the partition on a real or virtual drive. Cloning, restoring a backup, or copying a partition works fast & efficiently by transferring all the data *as data* rather than files & folders, BUT, the downside is that the original & target partitions are going to be the same size [apps that allow you to change size or filter what's transferred/backed up usually slow dramatically if you use that feature], so Partition Master comes in handy to reduce the partition size of the original, or expand the target. And as *Very* large hard drives become common, adding partitions can make a whole lot of practical sense, dividing all that space up into more manageable pieces that are easier to maintain -- e.g. there's less [if any] reason to defrag 3 movies that won't be on your hard drive once you watch them, so just defrag the smaller partition with Windows & your software. Again Partition Master will work well. Needing to partition an SDHC card or USB stick is less common nowadays, but simply checking &/or replacing a single partition on one is unfortunately common, and many partition apps won't work with these USB devices -- now Partition Master will... that might be especially handy if you've gotten one of those sticks that came with 2 FAT partitions.

All in all I like EASEUS Partition Master & use it whenever I'm afraid Paragon's app might try too hard to help, for example changing Windows to boot with a new partition or whatever. I've never had it screw up & I've used it several dozen times. I've never had reason to use it outside of Windows, unless you count the times that, like Paragon it requires a re-boot into a DOS-like mode, does its thing, then goes into Windows... that's always worked fine. I wish Partition Master worked portably [e.g. why install partition software in a Virtual Machine to use 1 time when you don't have to?], but to me that's less a negative & more the absence of a positive.

mike  –  14 years ago  –  ¿Te ha parecido útil este comentario? si | no (+36)

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I've used this in the past,from a magazine giveaway. Very reliable.
I still have it in my programs. Backup your data first. I tried to do too many tasks first time I used it and wiped my hard drive clean. A backup saved me. One task at a time and it works beautifully.

Hrad  –  14 years ago  –  ¿Te ha parecido útil este comentario? si | no (+32)

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I won't have time to evaluate all of the features of EASEUS Partition Master 6.5.1, but I can tell you some things about EASEUS and other products and issues related to disk management. I'm finally upgrading to Win7x64 now that Microsoft has released various patches, such as proper support for greater than 2TB volumes, and I've managed to get some utility vendors to fix the problems with their products, especially on Vista and higher. In the past, EASEUS hasn't supported some USB devices, but this version claims to. I wanted a clean copy of Vista x32 before upgrading, and that involved a special system recovery partition on my system drive. Paragon failed miserably, but EASEUS and StorageCraft ShadowProtect Desktop had no problems dealing with the special partition. EASEUS performed the partition copy at boot time, which made me a little nervous because it didn't display useful status information during that time, and I had a lot of very high-capacity drives connected, but it appeared to do the copy correctly. Giveaway versions will never include WinPE boot disks because of licensing issues. Paragon uses outdated WinPE boot disks, a couple of generations old. ShadowProtect uses WinPE3/2008/Win7 boot disks, which work great. GPT volumes are required for greater than 2TB volumes, and have useful improvements, but support isn't so hot across the board, especially if you try to copy/restore a GPT volume to another drive. I installed a TRIM-enabled SSD as my system volume, which is extremely fast in Win7, but doesn't have much capacity. I installed four 2TB disks to use as RAID volumes using Intel Rapid Storage Technology 9.6, which permits multiple types of RAID volumes on the same drive set. I wanted some RAID 10 and some RAID 5 volumes. First problem right off the bat, I didn't need to worry about the GPT vs. MBR issue, because my Intel RAID Option ROM doesn't support greater than 2TB RAID volumes. Out of 8TB raw, I created a relatively small 200GB RAID 10 volume, which took longer than I expected to create (definitely going to be a problem for larger volumes). The whole point of higher RAID versions is to allow at least one drive to die without impact, and adding a replacement drive isn't supposed to impact performance either, as the rebuilding process is supposed to occur in the background. It turns out that a data cable to one of the drives is defective (major headache considering how much of the computer I'm going to have to disassemble to get to it), so that drive dropped out on reboot. So that tested RAID single-drive failure handling. Intel Rapid Storage Technology failed miserably. Win7 boot was held while the Intel RAID tried to deal with the issue, which shouldn't have caused any problems. After many hours longer than the original volume took to create, it was still churning away on the empty RAID volume, preventing Windows from booting. I had to give up, no telling how long it would have taken, and clearly utilizing all 8TB could have prevented use of the computer for a week or more. So I'm going to replace the cable, but create small RAID volumes of various types, then pull the plug on one of the drives and see if it can handle the drive failure correctly. Obviously, if Intel Rapid Storage Technology can't handle a RAID drive failure correctly, then there's no point in using RAID.

Fubar  –  14 years ago  –  ¿Te ha parecido útil este comentario? si | no (+23)

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