partition

One of the best ways to maximize your PC's storage capacity is to create drive partitions that separate Windows system files from your data and programs. Partitioning makes backups faster and simpler. It can also improve overall system performance on machines with little unused storage space.

A serious limitation to the disk-partitioning utility built into Windows 7 is that you can't extend whichever partition is the farthest right. For some reason, partitions can only be extended to the right. Unfortunately, the … Read more

Disk Drill for Mac is an easy-to-use data-recovery tool with a limited free version and more-robust (and more expensive) Pro, Expert, and Enterprise packages. The free Disk Drill Basic can help you protect your computer from future data loss (whether accidental trashing or as the result of more serious hardware problems), while you'll need to pay for at least Disk Drill Pro if you've already lost data that you need to recover.

What sets Disk Drill apart is its slimmed-down interface and almost painfully user-friendly documentation. If you're looking for a data recovery app with a good … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer e-mailed questions from our readers. This week we have questions about a Mac not booting after months of no use, heat differences between the 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro, upgrading a commercial external hard drive, bootable backup options, and the difference between partitioning and using two drives. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present a few answers here, we certainly welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: Mac not booting after months of no use MacFixIt reader "… Read more

Drive Genius is a hard-working hard-drive utility from longtime Mac developers Prosoft Engineering, with the honorable distinction of being employed at the Apple Store Genius Bar as part of their ProCare Yearly Tune Up service.

The interface of Drive Genius shares some similarities with that of its data-recovery sister program Data Rescue: you navigate through a 3D "tool arena," a sort of virtual lazy Susan of hard-drive tasks that's fast and fluid enough to not be annoying (and it's actually kind of fun). You choose from six primary tasks, Information (with detailed readouts on S.M.… Read more

When setting up a hard drive or even after using one for a while, sometimes it is useful to partition it so sections of its space can be used for different purposes. These purposes can be to set up a multiboot environment, separating system files from user files, or for segmenting used data from scratch and backup disks. For instance, if you use a drive to back files up, it may be beneficial to create one large partition for Time Machine, and have a second partition be used for manual backups since Time Machine will eventually use most of the … Read more

Sometimes people may have issues either with installing OS X where the installer may not show the drive as a valid installation source, or in the case of cloning from a previous boot drive the system will not boot. This likely happens in cases where people have acquired a system second-hand, or are reconfiguring a system that has had multiple drives and partitions on it, but can also happen if a current system has crashed to the point where the OS needs to be reinstalled.

While people might try using Disk Utility to format the hard drive to the recommended &… Read more

Our utilities update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems. This week there are updates for a couple of maintenance and data management and recovery utilities, as well as a partition manager and a reusable benchmarking suite.

Maintenance Yasu is a simple interface for running a variety of the built-in maintenance … Read more

MiniTool's Partition Wizard Home Edition is a free disk utility that adds powerful partition management capabilities to both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows installations. It can create, delete, resize, format, copy, convert, and hide partitions; change drive letters; convert dynamic disks back to basic disks; and perform critical tests and maintenance duties. It supports most disk types, including removable storage devices like flash drives and memory cards.

Partition Wizard's interface resembles recent Windows editions, with a familiar blue-toned navigation pane and color-delineated bar graphs for each disk partition. It opened with a detailed display of our system's disks … Read more

Windows has built-in disk management tools, and they do a pretty good job, but many users turn to third-party software for more robust solutions. Easeus Partition Master Professional Edition combines three of the most essential disk management utilities in one easy-to-use package. Its Partition Manager performs all essential disk formatting and maintenance functions, but it does much more, such as extending NTFS disk partitions without rebooting. The Partition Recovery Wizard helps recover damaged partitions and lost, corrupted, or accidentally erased data, and the Disk & Partition Copy Wizard feature makes it easy to copy a partition or an entire disk … Read more