Overview
Partitioning is one of those tasks that is either trivial or catastrophic depending on the tool. The built in disk management can create and delete, and it can shrink a volume as long as nothing immovable is sitting in the way, which it usually is. Partition Wizard does the operations disk management refuses, moving a partition, extending into unallocated space that is not adjacent, converting between partition table types without wiping, and it does them non destructively.
The Pro Ultimate tier is the one with the migration, recovery and bootable media features, and it is applied here. That means the operating system can be moved to a new drive, a lost partition can be recovered after a bad decision, and the whole toolset can be run from bootable media on a machine that will not start.
The operations that matter
Resize and move are the core. Because it can move a partition rather than only shrink it, the classic situation of a system volume with unallocated space stranded on the wrong side of a recovery partition is solvable in one operation rather than not at all. Everything is queued as pending operations and only executed when you apply them, so a mistake in planning is undone with a click instead of a restore.
Conversion covers file system changes without formatting, partition table conversion between the older and newer schemes without data loss, and switching a disk between basic and dynamic. Each of these is a case where the built in tools require a wipe and this does not, which is the reason the program exists.
Migration, cloning and bootable media
Migrating a system to a new drive copies the operating system, the boot configuration and the hidden partitions that make a machine actually start, then fixes the boot record for the new hardware. It handles moving from a larger drive to a smaller solid state one by taking only the used data, which is the most common real world case and the one that trips up simple cloning tools.
Full disk cloning is there for a straight replacement, sector by sector where you need an exact copy or file based where you do not. The bootable media builder writes a rescue environment that runs the entire toolset without Windows, which is how you fix a machine whose system partition is the problem. Build that media before you need it, not after.
Recovery, analysis and safety
Partition recovery scans a disk for the signatures of volumes that have been deleted or lost to a damaged partition table and restores them. It works surprisingly often, provided nothing substantial has been written since. Data recovery handles individual deleted files with the same caveat.
The supporting tools are the ones you end up using most, a space analyser that shows what is filling a drive, a surface test for bad sectors, a benchmark, and a wipe with several passes for a drive being disposed of. Before any structural operation on a drive holding anything you care about, take a backup. The program is reliable, but a power cut in the middle of a move is not something any tool survives.
What you get
- Non destructive resize and move including non adjacent space
- File system conversion without formatting
- Partition table conversion without data loss
- System migration to a new drive with boot configuration fixed
- Full disk cloning, sector by sector or file based
- Bootable rescue media running the whole toolset without Windows
- Lost partition recovery and deleted file recovery
- Space analyser, surface test, benchmark and multi pass wipe
- Pending operation queue so nothing runs until you apply it
Inside the archive
- Partition Wizard Pro Ultimate installer, 32 and 64 bit
- Ultimate tier applied during setup
- Bootable media builder
- Recovery components
- Language packs for the interface list shown above
System requirements
| Operating system | Windows 7 or newer, 32 or 64-bit |
|---|---|
| Processor | Any current x86 or x64 processor |
| Memory | 2 GB |
| Storage | 500 MB |
| Display | 1024 by 768 or higher |
| Other | Administrator rights, and a backup before structural operations |
Installing it
- Run the installer as administrator.
- Apply the tier step from the archive before the first launch.
- Open the program and confirm the migration and recovery entries are available rather than greyed out.
- Build the bootable rescue media straight away, while the machine still works.
- Take a backup before running any operation that moves or converts a partition holding data.
Mirrors
| Route | Region | Note | State |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct, primary | Europe | No wait, resumable | Online |
| Direct, secondary | North America | No wait, resumable | Online |
| Torrent magnet | Global | Not needed at this size | Online |
Release history
- Migration handles hidden recovery partitions on recent factory images correctly
- Fixed a stall when moving very large partitions on slow external drives
- Bootable media builder updated for current Windows builds
- Partition recovery scan speed improved
- Space analyser rewritten with a faster tree view
- Added support for larger sector size drives
Questions about this release
Can it extend my system partition when the free space is not next to it?
Yes. It moves the partitions in between, which is exactly the case the built in disk management cannot handle.
Will migrating to a smaller solid state drive work?
Yes, provided the used data fits. It copies the data rather than the whole disk image.
Do I need the bootable media?
Build it while the machine is healthy. It is the only way to run these operations when the system partition itself is the problem.
Is it safe on a drive with data?
The operations are non destructive by design, but take a backup anyway. No tool survives a power cut in the middle of a partition move.
Comments
Moved a recovery partition out of the way to extend C. Disk management flatly refused, this did it in one pass.
Recovered a partition I deleted by mistake. Wrote nothing to the disk first, which is apparently the whole trick.
Comments are read before they appear. If a build stops working, say so here and it gets rebuilt rather than quietly left up.
Migrated a 1 TB system drive onto a 500 GB solid state and it booted first time. Ultimate features all unlocked.