PartitionMagic is a

utility software Utility software is a program specifically designed to help manage and tune system or application software. It is used to support the computer infrastructure - in contrast to application software, which is aimed at directly performing tasks that b ...

program for hard disk drive partitioning originally made by

PowerQuest PowerQuest was a Software industry, software company that produced utility software. It was acquired by NortonLifeLock, Symantec in 2003. PowerQuest's market focus was on management of computer data storage, especially file systems and disk p ...

, but subsequently owned by

Symantec Symantec may refer to: * Gen Digital, an American consumer software company formerly known as Symantec * Symantec Security, a brand of enterprise security software purchased by Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational corporation, ...

. As of December 8, 2009, the Symantec website stated that they no longer offer PartitionMagic. The program runs on pre-Vista

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

s including Windows 2000 and Windows XP, but the application is incompatible with Windows Vista and later versions (although Microsoft added resizing). In any of these cases, existing partitions can be resized without loss of data.

Details

PartitionMagic is capable of resizing

NTFS NT File System (NTFS) (commonly called ''New Technology File System'') is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft in the 1990s. It was developed to overcome scalability, security and other limitations with File Allocation Tabl ...

FAT16 File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers and was the default file system for the MS-DOS and Windows 9x operating systems. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on Ha ...

FAT32 File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers and was the default file system for the MS-DOS and Windows 9x operating systems. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on ...

partitions without data loss, and can copy and move partitions, including to other disks. It also has various other features, including being able to convert between FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS, modify the cluster size of FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS filesystems, and merge adjacent FAT or NTFS filesystems (all without data loss, though some NTFS-only metadata is lost on conversion to FAT). Additionally, it had somewhat limited support for

ext2 ext2, or second extended file system, is a file system for the Linux kernel (operating system), kernel. It was initially designed by French software developer Rémy Card as a replacement for the extended file system (ext). Having been designed ...

and

ext3 ext3, or third extended filesystem, is a journaling file system, journaled file system that is commonly used with the Linux kernel. It used to be the default file system for many popular Linux distributions but generally has been supplanted by ...

partitions. PartitionMagic was the first commercial product of its kind containing patented technology. The first version of PartitionMagic was released with

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

and

OS/2 OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, ...

support. Versions 2–3 were offered with DOS, OS/2 and Windows support. Symantec's PartitionMagic version 8 dropped the OS/2 version. Server versions were also offered under the name ''Server Magic'' for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and

Novell NetWare NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the Internetwork Packet Exchange, IPX network protocol. The f ...

servers. The stable version of PartitionMagic 8.05 also included a rescue floppy disk with an additional

version of PartitionMagic. The DOS version (which included DR-DOS or MS-DOS) came on one 2.88 MB or two 1.44 MB floppy disks. The Windows version of PartitionMagic could also be integrated in

BartPE BartPE (Bart's Preinstalled Environment) is a discontinued tool that customizes Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 into a lightweight environment, similar to Windows Preinstallation Environment, which could be run from a Live CD or Live USB drive ...

(Bart's Preinstalled Environment) a Windows XP based Live CD created by using th
PE Builder
To integrate PartitionMagic into BartPE a PE Builder plug-in for PartitionMagic was available.

History

PowerQuest's Partition Magic originated in 1993; Version 2.0 was available for purchase by January 1995. An

version was available by September 1995. Version 3.02 came out in early 1997. PartitionMagic, while under

, was updated regularly, adding new features. Once Symantec purchased the application in 2003, there were no new releases, and Symantec stated that it had no plans on releasing a new version. As of October 13, 2011, the Symantec website stated, "Sorry, we no longer offer Norton Partition Magic."

Compatibility issues

PartitionMagic is compatible with

Windows NT Windows NT is a Proprietary software, proprietary Graphical user interface, graphical operating system produced by Microsoft as part of its Windows product line, the first version of which, Windows NT 3.1, was released on July 27, 1993. Original ...

, 95/ 98, ME,

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

, and XP desktop editions. However, it is not compatible with server editions of Windows NT, 2000, nor

2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

by design – a more expensive product from the same manufacturer, ServerMagic, would handle these – nor does it run on

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

and later versions. PartitionMagic 2.0.5, VolumeManager 7 and VolumeManager 8 cannot resize

dynamic disk The Logical Disk Manager (LDM) is an implementation of a logical volume manager for Microsoft Windows NT, developed by Microsoft and Veritas Software. It was introduced with the Windows 2000 operating system, and is supported in Windows XP, Wi ...

References

External links

Download Partition Magic 8 Demo - Softpedia

{{Authority control Disk partitioning software Gen Digital software Windows-only proprietary software Discontinued software Utilities for Windows

Details

History

Compatibility issues

See also

References

External links