Partition resizing programs

[scb147]

The main hard drive in my desktop PC crashed over the weekend. I have all my data on a 2nd drive. But the problem is that I need to re-partition my 2nd drive in order to temporarily install Windows onto it.

Anyone have any recommendations on a good partition manager that will not destroy data and can boot from a CD? Free is good, but I may buy

Thanks!

[pcostanza]

I used Partition Magic for years and with Vista, switched to Acronis Disk Suite. They are both easy but not free. They've never, ever caused problems with my data however, always backup first.
Gparted is also very good but not as intuitive.
Check out this site for some freebies at the bottom of the pagel
http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/...tors.shtml

[jd142]

Gparted has worked well for me. It's a bootable linux cd that pretty much just runs the parted partition manager.

[rowle1jt]

I'll vote for Partition Magic (haven't used it in a few years though) and Acronis which I use regularly.

[ACTCMS]

The main hard drive in my desktop PC crashed over the weekend. I have all my data on a 2nd drive. But the problem is that I need to re-partition my 2nd drive in order to temporarily install Windows onto it.

Anyone have any recommendations on a good partition manager that will not destroy data and can boot from a CD? Free is good, but I may buy

Thanks!

If you are going to spend, better to buy a new disk to replace your crashed one.

However the software which others have recommended would do the job...

[pvrtinkerer]

I'm a fan of Bootit NG, a boot manager, partition manager and overall useful utility. It's shareware available from http://www.terabyteunlimited.com.

[scb147]

If you are going to spend, better to buy a new disk to replace your crashed one.

However the software which others have recommended would do the job...

I actually went ahead and bought a replacement drive... but I'd still like to have a partition manager just so if something like this happens again, I can still use my desktop.

Thanks everyone for their suggestions!

[reboot]

I fix these things on a regular basis, and Partition Magic is well worth the money if you're using it more than once a week.
For a one-time job, get BootIt NG as probably the most cost effective solution.

[pcostanza]

I fix these things on a regular basis, and Partition Magic is well worth the money if you're using it more than once a week.
For a one-time job, get BootIt NG as probably the most cost effective solution.

I agree but had to switch to Acronis when I started using Vista. Did PM come out with a Vista version yet?

[smajor]

I vote for gParted. Its free, and works like to charm to resize, move & mirror partitions. And if you know how to use the 'dd' command from the command line, you can even easily create ISOs from your partition data. That is the only tool I use with all my PC (windows & linux) partitioning needs.

Same here, I've used the gParted bootable CD quite a lot. If you're only familiar with "Windows" and never used Linux, don't worry. It, it boots to the program and you can easily figure it out from there.