#Disk manager windows 7 software
#Disk manager windows 7 windows 7
#Disk manager windows 7 free

MiniTool Partition Wizard warned that the resizing would not be complete until the machine was restarted. You're then prompted to restart to complete the resizing. It took less than a minute for the repartitioning to finish, but then a warning appeared stating that the operation could not be completed because the drive was in use. The program shows a status bar as it resizes the partition indicating data about the partition it's working on, including the drive letter, label, and new partition size. MiniTool Partition Wizard 'strongly' recommended that I disable the laptop's power-saving options before proceeding with the repartitioning. These include backup programs and utilities for creating bootable CDs.īoth programs recommend that you close all other apps and back up your data before using them.

#Disk manager windows 7 free

Many of the other options listed in the left sidebars and top menu bars of the two programs lead to pages on the vendors' sites for downloading their other free and fee-based disk-management tools. The Easeus Partition Master Home Edition uses the same layout as MiniTool Partition Wizard but has a slightly cleaner overall appearance.īoth apps also feature wizards to step you through the process of copying and recovering disks and partitions. MiniTool's Partition Wizard Home Edition lists the information about the system's disks in the main window and a graph of the disk partitions in a smaller window below.

Below the main windows are graphical representations of each disk's partitions, much like those used in Windows 7's built-in disk partitioner. The top menu bars and left sidebars list the options available in the programs for copying, deleting, formatting, hiding, and otherwise working with partitions. Both list information about the PC's disks in the main window: format, total capacity, used and unused capacity, status (boot, system, active, etc.) and type (primary or logical). The two programs resemble each other so much that it was difficult to remember which one I was using as I moved between them. Similar interfaces, but different results

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Things went much more smoothly with Easeus Partition Master Home Edition, which required only a single reboot to adjust the Windows 7 partition when running under Windows 7.

#Disk manager windows 7 software

Paragon Software Group's MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition required several attempts and reboots to resize the Windows 7 partition when I ran the program under that OS. The two disk-partitioning programs I tried are free for home use. But not many people run two operating systems on their PCs, so I decided to try expanding the Windows 7 partition from within Windows 7. Since the laptop dual-boots Windows 7 and Vista, it would be much simpler to extend the crowded Windows 7 partition by running a disk-partitioning program under Vista. Poor planning on my part, I know, but it happens. Unfortunately, the rightmost partition on my dual-boot laptop was down to 7 percent free space, while another partition about the same size was more than 90 percent unused. For some reason, partitions can only be extended to the right. Ultimate Defrag maximizes your disk-management optionsĪ serious limitation to the disk-partitioning utility built into Windows 7 is that you can't extend whichever partition is the farthest right. Stay safe, save time by partitioning your hard drive It can also improve overall system performance on machines with little unused storage space. Partitioning makes backups faster and simpler.

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.