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Full user review
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"Nice, but made Windows inoperable."
Pros
The interface is clean and fairly intuitive. The on-line help is good enough but could explain more. Partition Assistant performed almost all the functions I asked it to do
Cons
It made Windows unbootable.
A wizard-type assistant would enhance the usefulness of this product.
It did not handle the necessary Windows restarts well on my Windows 7.Summary
Almost no software can do as much damage as a malfunctioning partitioning program, because the system image one has on hand to recover an unstartable Windows is useless once the partition in which Windows is to reside has changed size.
Partition Assistant made some sort of error that did not reveal itself until Windows hung on restart. I was very fortunate in that the repair-system function on the Windows installation DVD was able to find and correct the disk error that Partition Assistant produced. Otherwise, I would have had to install Windows from scratch, re-partition the hard drive back to its state before using Partition Assistant, and hope that my system-image backup would then work to restore the system that I had worked on so hard for several days.
Besides the fact that Windows' repair prowess saved me, the other good news is that Partition Assistant had indeed performed all but one of the actions that I had requested, and that my disk was partitioned (almost) the way I had specified. (Partition Assistant sets up a series of steps based upon the user's choices; and once the user has completed specifying his/her desired actions, he/she clicks on "Apply" to have Partition Assistant do the actual job. I initially specified a new partition size of 210 GB; but before clicking on "Apply" I changed my choice to 180 GB instead. The final result of Partition Assistant's work was that I got a 210 GB partition, suggesting the possibility that it got confused when it tried to resize the partition a second time in the same job.)
I am left wondering if it isn't better simply to use Windows' own Disk Management--it may be more restrictive than the more user-friendly and seemingly more flexible third-party alternatives, but maybe there's a reason for that!
Finally, back in the days when Windows Disk Management was barely helpful, I used (fee, not free) Partition Magic, which always worked perfectly. Maybe one really does get what one pays for.
