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- Quick specs
- Price: Free
- Operating system: Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/NT
- Date added: January 15, 2006
- Total Downloads: 1,264,147
- Downloads last week: 5,250
- Product Ranking: #9 in File Management
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- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 149 votes
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CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff on February 27, 2009
You'd expect a program called SwissKnife to do all sorts of things, but this tiny application does only two: creating and quickly formatting disc partitions that can be read by Mac, Windows, and Linux systems. It can't resize, move, or even delete created partitions, nor can it work with partitions on the boot disc. It can, however, make FAT32 partitions larger than 32MB--something Windows 2000 and XP can't do. For swapping an external drive between platforms, CompuApps SwissKnife is just what you need. Otherwise, you'll probably do just as well with Windows Disk Management.
Publisher's description
From CompuApps:If you are looking for an external hard disk drive that can be used interchangeably between Windows XP, Windows 98, Mac OS, and Linux, there is only one way to prepare the hard disk and SwissKnife does it for you. You can create, delete partitions and format your IDE hard disk drives in one smooth, simple process. SwissKnife allows creation of FAT32 and NTFS partitions. FAT16 option is provided for compatibility. Supports Internal interfaces such as IDE and SCSI and External interfaces such as Hi-Speed USB, Parallel port, PCMCIA, USB On-The-Go, Firewire, and SATA interfaces. Create Fixed and Removable Disk Format types. Version 3.22 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.
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User reviews
- All versions: 2.9 starsout of 149 votes
- 5 stars
- 4 stars
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- 2 stars
- 1 stars
- Current version: 2.8 starsout of 92 votes
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- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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4 stars
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Version: CompuApps SwissKnife V3 3.22
"Does not work for XP"
Cons: Searching download.com for xp software brought up this item, but in the documentation list of OS xp is omitted and it crashes in xp.
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5 stars
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: CompuApps SwissKnife V3 3.22
"very fast clean fat32 partition on external drive"
Pros: I used SwissKnife for one reason, to create a FAT32 partition on an external USB hard-drive. It did the job so fast I wasn't sure it had worked. The interface is a little different but easy-to-use. I am not sure I could do the same thing using standard XP disk management utility. If so, it certainly was not obvious. I can't speak to other applications but, in this case, SwissKnife performed flawlessly.
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5 stars
4 out of 5 people found this review helpful
Version: CompuApps SwissKnife V3 3.22
"Works where no others would, simple and reliable."
Pros: Worked every time on drives that no other program would recognize. Used it on thumb drives, usb enclosures, firewire enclosures. Format 32 for use in linux, windows and mac - everything was great, and it's super, super fast. Love, Love, Love.
Cons: None that I can think of.
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5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: CompuApps SwissKnife V3 3.22
"Not many options, but still..."
Pros: If you need to quickly create cross-platform (read Mac/Win workable) hard drive, this is for you. In a matter of two minutes, it will format HDD (internal or external) with FAT32 and it will work on both Mac and Win.
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1 stars
Version: CompuApps SwissKnife V3 3.22
"CONSTANTLY CRASHES!!"
Pros: Nothing!!!!
Cons: Constantly crashes. Doesn't format drives. USELESS!!
Summary: When it does start without crashing, you click FORMAT and nothing happens. Don't waste your time or bandwidth!!!
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1 stars
Version: CompuApps SwissKnife V3 3.22
"Crashes on XP."
Pros: don't know. Couldn't use.
Cons: Crashes on XP.
Summary: From other reveiws, sounds like it works well on other Microsoft OSs.
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3 stars
Version: CompuApps SwissKnife V3 3.22
"Crashed at first but worked in the end (in XP SP3)."
Pros: Can create Fat32 partitions greater than 32gb offered in windows. Interface is simple and intuitive.
Cons: Crashed at first when I clicked on my usb hardrive. I had to first format the drive using fat32format.exe (http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm) before swissknife worked (so I didn't need swissknife in the end..)
Summary: CompuApps need to fix the bug that causes it to crash. Once fixed this is a suitable program to create large Fat32 partitions.
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1 stars
Version: CompuApps SwissKnife V3 3.22
"Worthless."
Pros: nothing ok
Cons: everything
Summary: don't use it. I might as well going through the slow "cmd" process.
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4 stars
Version: CompuApps SwissKnife V3 3.22
"Works Great!"
Pros: Worked fine in Windows XP, 32 bit, Service Pack 3, Build 2600.
Built Partition and formated 60 Gig USB Drive with FAT 32 in a flash, when XP would only format NTSF for the drive.Cons: You know, anything that formats that fast, isn't really formatting anything! All it's doing is setting up the file structure and FAT tables and zero the Directories.
Summary: It does the job where nothing else will. If you really want the drive fromatted after SwissKnife is done, use Windows CMD and re-do the format, it will lay down a FAT 32 format since the drive is now FAT 32. When CMD was done, it told me the drive was too big for FAT 32, but it was there and formatted.
The guiformat.exe is a very good FAT 32 format util for Windows XP. It will not create a partition, SwissKnife can do that. guiformat will only format a drive that already is partitioned. So, you can partition and format the drive (NTSF) with XP, then use guiformat.exe to re-format the drive to FAT 32. The really nice thing about guiformat, is that the non-quick format is a REAL format! So, the best way to do a FAT 32 format for your USB drive is SwissKnife to partition and do a fast format, then use guiformat.exe to do the long Real format with FAT 32. Here is the link to guiformat.exe http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=1529&ts=1259072341
Updated on Jul 3, 2010 -
4 stars
Version: CompuApps SwissKnife V3 3.22
"DId exactly what it was supposed to do"
Pros: I wanted the software to format my 60GB external drive to FAT32.
It did.Cons: UI is a bit ancient. but I can live with that.
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