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EASEUS Partition Master Professional Edition 9
Jayesh Limaye, Aug 25, 2011 2156 hrs ISTA powerful tool for partition manipulation.
Easy to use; Works with partitions without destroying the data and mostly without having to reboot; Handles every file system partition.
Free version offers most of the functionalities; Lacks support for server versions of Windows.
Expert Rating :
EASEUS Partition Master Professional Edition 9
Price: $ 19.99 (Rs 915 approx)
You generally don't play around with disk partitions unless when you are installing a new operating system and \ or want to reorganize data because you had misjudged the partition size when you first created them and are now running out of disk space. Windows 7 Disk Management lets you do a lot with partitions, but there are certain tasks you cannot achieve, such as resizing the host OS partition. Also, Windows XP users don't have the luxury of using such Disk Management features and there are still plenty of users using the old OS. EASEUS Partition Master Professional Edition 9 lets you manage everything related to partitions.
Design And Features
EASEUS Partition Master Professional Edition or EPM is a powerful software for creating, destroying, resizing, moving, checking, and copying partitions and the file-systems on them. It lets you do just about anything and everything with drive partitions. This is very useful for creating space for new operating systems (such as when you wish to upgrade to Windows 7, which occupies a great deal of space), to reorganize disk space (such as redistributing it for specific purposes such that one partition may store software, one for music, one for videos, and one for games), to copy data that resides on the hard drive, or to simply mirror one partition with another (disk imaging or cloning). We must mention that you can do everything mentioned above without losing the data on the drive. Most of the procedures can be done even within a session of Windows without having to reboot the computer.
Before you run the program, it is advisable to back up your data, because even though there is a very little risk of losing your data, we don't want you to take any chances. EPM looks eerily similar to Symantec's Partition Magic. Unlike a few years ago, this software has really evolved and the UI has been definitely improved by miles.
The hard drives in your system and the partitions on each of them are depicted graphically in the interface. All the functions are very easy to access; you can either use the menu at the top or just right-click on a drive to access the functions. You can also use the toolbar at the top to access different functions.
As you perform different operations, you'll see the chronological list of these actions accumulating in a list at the bottom of the left pane under Pending Operations. You can review them and use the Undo button to go back a step if you find something amiss. Click on the Apply button at the top to complete these actions. Your partitions are intact as long as you do not click Apply, but once you do, there is no turning back.
You can achieve most of the tasks by graphically manipulating using the mouse cursor. You can right-click on a partition and click on Information to get detailed information about the partition or drive in question.
The Partition Copy Wizard lets you clone a partition to another, such as when you want to backup your data to another hard drive partition. You can also migrate the host OS to a new hard drive using this wizard. The destination partition has to be at least as large as the source partition. In a similar way, the Disk Copy Wizard copies an entire hard disk to another one. As before, the destination hard drive has to be larger than the source. You can even destroy a partition and even securely delete the data so that it will no longer be recoverable.
EPM does have one flaw, which it is still carrying from the previous versions - it does not have an option to retest bad sectors or even verify if the hard drive has any bad sectors before operating on it. This option is very useful as this checks the integrity of the hard drive being partitioned before applying any procedure, because it will save you from a later headache.
EPM Professional Edition comes with a built-in tool to create a Linux-based bootable disk. Though it lacks certain features available in the Windows version such as support for dynamic disk, GPT disk, convert primary/logical attribute, etc, it is useful when the computer is unable to boot into Windows. The bootable disk allows you to rebuild MBR in case of failure caused by corrupt or damaged MBR. You can also partition a hard disk before installing the OS or remove old and useless OS partitions, which might sometimes not be possible through Windows.
System administrators would love this feature, but there are a few more features in this software that would appeal to such power users. A few such features include repairing RAID 5 dynamic volume and the Partition Recovery Wizard for recovery of volumes from unallocated space on a basic MBR/GPT disk that were accidentally deleted or damaged.
Verdict
EASEUS Partition Master Professional Edition can do everything related to manipulating data-filled partitions without destroying the data. You can resize partitions without the risk of losing any data, and you can even do this in a graphical manner (by using your mouse cursor). It can handle all major file systems.
While this version does everything, a home user is better off with the Home Edition, which is free. This version has certain features not present in the Home Edition, such as resizing dynamic volume, and managing partitions with WinPE \ Linux bootable CD, which are usually not of any use for the general user.
Apart from a few shortcomings such as the inability to identify and mark bad sectors on hard drives before writing/moving data , this version also lacks support for the server versions of Windows 2000, 2003, 2008, and even Windows Home Server, which might not go well with system administrators. At $ 19.95 (Rs 915 approx) for a single license, this is a good tool for system administrators and professionals who do not work with server versions of Windows, though the Home Edition is still the best option for a majority of users.
Features: 4/5
Ease Of Use: 4/5
Performance: 4/5
Value For Money: 2.5/5
MoJo: 4/5
Overall Rating: 3.5
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