I've been using PartitionMagic since version 3, so I jumped at the chance to try out the new version. It will now create, resize, merge, and convert partitions larger than 20 Megabytes. In addition, the user interface has been enhanced, and Wizards have been added to make it easier for first-time users.

I've usually run PM from a floppy disk, but the main operation I had planned required it to be run from a hard drive. The installation took just a couple minutes, and the program can then be run from within Windows, or from a command-line.

I had an unusual task at hand. One of my drives had a 2G FAT partition, which Idecided to split and convert to other types. I needed half of it for LinuxSwap, and the other half for NTFS file system.

PowerQuest recommends always backing up the data on your drive first, so I used another PowerQuest product - Drive Image, to first create an exact copy all the partitions onto another drive. Like PM, DI can be run from floppy or hard disk.I used the latter, and in just 20 minutes the entire 18G was safely duplicated onto another disk.

Now back to the conversion. If not for the spiffy new interface, it would have been boring. With multiple disk view, and drag-and-drop, it's easy to manage multiple partitions on several disks. PM will record all the steps required to make the changes, and then play them back, so there's time for a walk will it happens auto-magic-ally.

With the conversion finished, I'm now able to use extra hard disk to get better performance while running either Linux or Windows. I have a swap partition for each OS near the beginning of my extra drive, which is the fastest part of the disk.

Partition Magic is the first program I use on a new hard disk. I don't know how I would efficiently organize my operating systems, programs, and data without it.