NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article
Partition Magic 6.0 From PowerQuest
A Review by E. Stanton Maxey, M.D., January 2001
edmaxey@juno.com
(click to email author)


Ed. Note: Edited for space considerations.

Members will remember the excellent program Gene Barlow from PowerQuest presented at our May 2000 meeting entitled "Tools to Manage Your Hard Drive". PowerQuest has just recently announced version 6 of Partition Magic and Gene has provided us a copy for review.

Participating computers used in the review include a Gateway Solo with an Intel CPU, a clone with an AMD Athlon CPU and a clone with an AMD 550 MHZ CPU. Operating systems used are WindowsME, Windows98SE and Windows95B.

The 149 page User Guide has informative graphic illustrations and is generally well written.

The initial installation with the Typical installation option selected, using the Gateway notebook, with WindowsMe went off without a hitch. Two rescue floppies can be created during the process, which are bootable and allow running a limited version of PM60.

The PM60 initial screen recommends closing all other applications while running Partition Magic. This is somewhat explained in the User Guide, "If you have open files, Partition Magic may need to reboot your computer and apply changes in boot mode." (pg 47) The time lost with rebooting can often be avoided by closing applications before running PM60.

Several online help errors were detected:

    1) Online help failed on initial attempt until both WindowsMe and PM60 were re-installed.
    2) In pursuing "...2 Gig Boot Code Boundary." (pg 37) it reads "The CHS value for the needed sector is calculated as follows:
    Sector Number / Sectors per Track
    Because of the way the boot code is written, the product of this calculation must fit in a 16-bit register..." I suspect most of us know that a number divided by another number yields a quotient, while a number multiplied by another number yields a product. This, as well as the following discrepancies have been referred to PowerQuest.
    3) In the section on "Understanding the BIOS 1,024 Cylinder Limit," there are questions of validity of several statements. Also, this section states that in creating a bootable partition, it must begin below the boot code boundary specified in the ..table. (pg 37). Yet, it booted without difficulty when created above the 10 GB area with the Windows 95B Boot Code Boundary of 8 GB.

    Further, running Windows98SE, PM60 reported a logical partition as bootable, which was a backup copy of a primary bootable partition. Regardless, logical FAT partitions are not thought to be bootable. When PM60 was used to hide this logical partition, it was no longer reported as bootable.

The review effort took an abrupt turn when Dick Maxey (NWA-PCUG member living in Florida) had trouble with his computer after having the motherboard replaced, and even after Maxtor replaced both 5.7 gig drives under warranty. One of these drives was sent to me and functioned properly when installed in my desktop. Dick then sent his entire computer.

To make a long and exasperating story short, another FIC-VA-503+ motherboard was installed with an AMD 550 MHZ CPU, the BIOS was flashed to the latest FIC version and PM60 was installed. It appeared to run properly, but when the slave hard drive which ran normally in my desktop was installed in Dick's, PM60 produced an error (113 if memory serves) and would go no further. However, it ran properly after deleting all partitions on the slave drive and creating a new primary partition with FDISK and then formatting.

Next, PM60 was used to:

    1. Resize the Windows98SE OS down to just over a gigabyte,
    2. Create two additional primary partitions of just over a gigabyte,
    3. Create an extended partition in the remaining unallocated space,
    4. Create two logical partitions of equal size,
    5. Copy the master #1 partition to primary partitions #1, #2 and #3 on the slave drive,
    6. Create an extended partition in the remaining slave unallocated space and
    7. Create two logical partitions of equal size in the slave drive.

The computer was then booted from the #1 partition of the slave drive through a multiple booting utility, which automatically hides all other primary partitions on both hard drives.

PowerQuest's BootMagic, a multiple booting utility, comes on the PM60 CD platter. It is easily installed and permits booting from multiple partitions on mulitple hard drives. It uses 9.2 megabytes to install files in the C:\BTMAGIC.PQ folder. Among these is BTmagic.img, the file BootMagic uses to display the BootMagic Menu. BootMagic allows only one copy of BTMAGIC.IMG among the primary partitions on the master drive. A check confirmed that it does not object to such copies on the slave drive. No operating system will boot if either the MBR or the partition with the BTMAGIC.PQ folder goes sour. Should this occur, a BootMaster Rescue floppy can be used to hopefully recover. Also, BootMagic may be disabled and re-enabled as the need arises.

The computer was now booted from the master #1 partition and PM60 was used to label the three master partitions and the three slave partitions, as Dick, Cash, and Guest (each has one master and one slave). All six partitions are identical except for hidden and active settings.

PM60's "check for errors" operation found no problems on partitions two through ten. It ran SCANDISK on the active first partition without finding errors. The ability to easily and quickly check partitions on all hard drives is very useful. PM60 did show precisely the same numerical values on similar partitions in the identical master and slave drives but the graphic Partition Maps were not identical and the triangle markers (for the 2 gig boot boundary and the 1040 cylinder boundary) were not positioned one atop the other. This is puzzling. Otherwise, PM60 now behaved flawlessly throughout.

Finally, the computer was now rebooted from the master Guest partition and the PM60 program removed with the Uninstall command, to avoid Guest users fiddling with it and maybe doing severe damage.

Dick's computer now automatically boots from the master Guest partition when the computer is turned on. However, during bootup, by entering the appropriate password, either Dick or Catherine (nicknamed Cash) may bootup in either of their respective partitions, master or slave. Children may bootup in the Guest partition without a password and play games.

Dick or Cash may back up their own or other partitions from master to slave using either PM60 or PowerQuest Drive Image. If restoration is required, the procedure is reversed, from the slave duplicates to master. If the master is unuseable, system recovery requires only removal of the master hard drive, resetting the slave drive jumpers to a master drive configuration and restoring the MBR from a bootable floppy rescue utility. (Ed. Note: Since this was written, Dick's master drive went south and this recovery procedure worked flawlessly -- rebooting from the slave drive).

Summarizing, Partition Magic 6.0 is a great and powerful program and it is highly recommended. It has oodles of useful functions not touched on here. The colored graphics are especially useful and provide volumes of information at a glance. Very nice. The online help leaves much to be desired. Also, since PM60 has just recently been announced, the help section of the web site at: http://www.powerquest.com/support/emsupport.html does not yet have a PM60 section.

PartitionMagic 6.0 and Drive Image 4.0, also recently announced and reviewed in our November Newsletter, may be purchased by members at a special price of $30 each by ordering from the web site at www.ugr.com/order/ and indicating the special price code of UGEVAL00 with your order. Order forms will also be available at the January meeting.

    PowerQuest Corporation
    Gene Barlow, User Group Relations
    P.O. Box 275
    Orem, UT 84059-0275, (801) 796-7370
    barlow@ugr.com : http://www.ugr.com

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