The Editors
A Hard Disk Management
(and Bilingual OS Installation) Solution
Q: I recently purchased a new computer with a 1.6GB hard disk (good) that came configured as one giant C drive (bad). I know I'm wasting multi-megabytes of disk space since this huge partition uses 32K clusters. But since I've already installed both English and Japanese Windows 95 and lots of applications for each, I figure wasting disk space is preferable to wasting the better part of a day backing up everything, using the decrepit DOS FDISK utility to create new partitions, formatting them, reinstalling and reconfiguring each OS and application, and then restoring my files. Isn't there any magical solution that would just let me divide my current 1.6GB drive C into, say, three 533MB partitions (as drives C, D, and E) without destroying all the data? A: Yes, there is a magical solution -- called, appropriately enough, PartitionMagic. It won't wondrously divide your current partition into three parts with the wave of a mouse, but PowerQuest Corporation's PartitionMagic can nondestructively resize partitions, create and format a new partition (or delete an old one), and much more.
You're right about wasted space on a huge partition. Because of the limitations of the FAT (file allocation table) system used by DOS -- which, though hidden, still underlies Windows 95 -- each disk partition can have a maximum of about 65,000 clusters (basic data storage units). Thus, the larger the hard disk, the larger the cluster size -- and each file, no matter how small, takes up at least one full cluster.
The beauty of PartitionMagic is that it enables you to create smaller, more efficient partitions (or resize your current drives) in a matter of minutes -- without deleting any of your data. As a test of what kind of disk-space savings are possible, we tested PartitionMagic on the half-filled 1.6MB hard disk of a computer here in the office. When the entire drive was used as a single partition (32K clusters), the files occupied about 860MB of disk space. When we reduced drive C to a 980MB partition (16K clusters), those same files took up less than 770MB -- a 10% recovery of "wasted" disk space.
The easiest way to run PartitionMagic is from its (single) floppy disk. If you're running Windows 95, click Shut Down and then select "Restart the Computer in MS-DOS Mode." (Or, alternatively, reboot your computer and, when the "Starting Windows 95" message appears, hit F8, then choose "Command prompt only.") When the system has booted, slip the PartitionMagic floppy into drive A and type A:/pqmagic.
It can take PartitionMagic several minutes to load and analyze your hard disk(s). Once it does, you'll see a graphical display that shows the sizes of your current drives and offers a menu that allows you to do almost whatever you want with your partitions: resize or move them, create and format a new partition, or delete an existing partition. The onscreen display is straightforward, the required actions intuitive, and the manual clear and concise.
There is no Japanese version of PartitionMagic, but then readers of this magazine won't need one. We can confirm that the English version works smoothly under Japanese Windows/DOS, and it handles double-byte filenames without problem.
Bilingual users will find PartitionMagic useful for another reason: It allows the creation of multiple primary partitions (something that the DOS FDISK does not). If you want to add Japanese Windows 95 to your English Windows 95 system, for example, you could use PartitionMagic to reduce the size of the original Win95E partition, and create a second primary partition for Win95J in the freed-up space.
Using PartitionMagic, you can specify which of your two partitions you want to be active the next time you reboot. This effectively makes that partition drive C, and automatically "hides" the other (non-active) primary partition so that it doesn't receive a drive letter and cannot be accessed. Since the nonactive primary partition is not visible, it cannot affect (or be affected by) the Win95J installation process. And when you are running Win95J, there is no chance of accidentally accessing the Win95E OS files or applications (and vice versa).
This makes PartitionMagic a viable alternative, or supplement, to System Commander (covered in our June Help Desk) as a bilingual OS installation method. System Commander depends on the loader software that it places in the hard disk's boot record to select between operating systems; PartitionMagic used as described above alters the configuration settings in the hard disk partition table so that you can reboot the system with the new settings. While this may not be as user-friendly a selection method as the System Commander menu, it is probably safer in an office environment where inexperienced users might "mix-and-mismatch" OS files.
Soon, even better
Version 3.0 of Partition Magic is scheduled to ship on November 30. It will fully support NTFS and FAT32, and includes such nifty features as the ability to switch from FAT16 to FAT32 (and back), the ability to copy an entire partition, IBM's Boot Manager (a major plus!), and Micro Help's Uninstaller (for moving applications from one partition to another).
PartitionMagic 2.0
US list price $49.95; Japan list price JPY8,800 (JPY9,800 with Japanese manual)
From PowerQuest Corp. (Orem, Utah): phone +1-800-379-2566, fax +1-800-226-8941; magic@powerquest.com; http:// www.powerquest.com;
Distributed in Japan by NetJapan: phone 03-5296-1233, fax 03-5296-1255;
http://www.netjapan. com/.
