Speed up a hard disk with Partition Manager

Go to our Partition Manager download page at www.computeractive.co.uk/2224388 and click the red Download now button. If Internet Explorer displays a warning message, left-click it and choose Download File from the pop-up menu. Then click the Save button, choose a destination for the file (like the Windows Desktop) and click Save again.

Partition Master downloads as a compressed file but that is not a problem. Find it and double-click the icon. When the window opens, double-click the Setup icon. If Windows displays a warning, ignore it and click Run. At the next dialogue box type in a valid email address to receive the Easeus newsletter, or just ignore it and click Next. Then follow the prompts, agree to the licence and then click the Install button. When it has completed, click the Finish button.

Here is the main Partition Master screen. Ours shows three physical (ie real) hard disks: C, D and F. The first two are disks installed inside our test PC, while the third (F) is an old external disk that we want to use to back up music and photographs. In order to get the best out of it, we are going to use Partition Master to clean it up and divide it into two. None of the buttons along the top are active because we haven’t selected a disk to work on yet.

After backing up drive F, we will format (wipe) it and get rid of all the junk. Remember, you must back up any disk before working on it with a tool like Partition Master. Computeractive cannot held responsible for any lost data. It might be best to experiment with a new, blank disk. If you want to work on an existing disk without formatting, skip to Step 10. Otherwise, click the disk to highlight it and then click the Format button. At the dialogue box we will type in a name like ‘My Music and Photos’ and leave all the other settings as they are. Clicking OK finishes the process and Partition Master places the command in the Operations Pending panel on the left of the screen. It will stay there until we click the Apply button on the button bar and then click OK in the Apply Changes dialogue box.

Partition Master Will then perform the task. In this example formatting the disk and giving it a new name. It only takes a few moments (depending on how big the disk is) and afterwards, Partition Master displays the main screen again with the bottom disk formatted with the new name, but highlighted in white to indicate that the disk is ready for use. The next step is to divide it into two partitions: one for music and one for photos. Click on the disk to highlight it.

Our newly formatted disk is comprised of a single partition and we would like to turn it into two. After clicking on the disk, we now click on the Resize/Move button on the button bar. When the dialogue box opens the selected disk is displayed as a horizontal grey bar in the middle. Move the mouse pointer to the right-hand end and, when it turns into a double-headed arrow, click and drag the edge left to make it smaller. We’ve made it about two-thirds of the original size. Let go and click the OK button.

Although Partition Master appears to carry out the task instantly ­ creating a new partition called My Music and Photos and displaying a second, so-far-unallocated position ­ remember that nothing happens until the Apply button is clicked. Next, click on the unallocated part of the disk and then click on the Create button. When the dialogue box opens we will name the partition ‘My Photos’, leave the size as it is (we want to use the remainder of the disk) and then click OK.

Now we can go back to the first partition, select it and then click the Label button on the toolbar. Then we can rename it My Music and click OK. This will place three actions in the Operations Pending panel on the left ­ resizing the partition, creating a new partition in the space left over and then renaming both. Again, nothing happens until we click Apply and then click OK to confirm the changes. At the end, the Finish dialogue box is displayed telling us that we have successfully partitioned the drive.

Now let’s demonstrate exactly what has happened by using the familiar My Computer window. Leave Partition Master open and click the Start button, then choose My Computer. When the window opens there are two new ‘disks’ displayed there: one called My Music and one called My Photos. In fact, this is a single physical disk divided into two partitions. However, to Windows, they appear as separate disks, helping you to stay organised. Click the ‘x’ at the top right to close the My Computer window.

One of the benefits of a program like Partition Master is that it allows partitions to be resized quickly and easily. If you have just joined us from Step 4 then we have so far made a couple of partitions on our new disk. However, Partition Master can be used to resize a partition (or partitions) on existing disks. For example, on the two partitions we have created it’s clear that we do not need as much space for the photos as we have allocated. In fact we could do with borrowing some from there and giving it to the music partition. Start by selecting the smaller of the two partitions and then click the Resize/Move button. Then, as in Step 6 drag the outer edge of the partition to the right to make it smaller. If you have just the one, large partition then after resizing like this you will have a second, unallocated partition. Click this then click the Create button to create a usable partition.

Next, switch to the other partition and again, click the Resize/Move button. When the dialogue box appears, drag the partition to the right to increase its size. Then click OK to close the dialogue box. What we’ve done in this example is decrease the size of the photo partition from just over 6GB to just over 4GB and then increased the size of the music partition from just under 13GB to just over 15GB. To confirm our changes we just clicked the Apply button and then click Yes in the Apply Changes dialogue box.

This program is also good at copying existing partitions and their contents. This is a quick way of setting up a series of partitions that are exactly the same size and because Partition Master also copies the contents, it’s also a useful way of moving stuff around between hard disks. First though, you have to create some space for the copy. Here we have simply made the music partition smaller and not assigned the resulting space yet. Thus it appears in grey as unallocated. Start by clicking the Copy button.

When the Copy wizard starts, click Next. If there is more than one chunk of unallocated space on any of your hard disks, you will need to find the right one. Because we have only got one, Partition Master selects it automatically. All we have to do is click the Next button. At the last screen we can leave all the settings as they are because we want to create an exact copy of the existing partition (although we could increase the size if we wanted). Then we click Finish to confirm.

And here’s the result. We’ve used part of the unallocated space on our external disk to create an exact copy of the My Photos partition so we now have a 7.3GB space for music, two 4GB space for photos and nearly 4GB left of unallocated space. Partition Master also lets you copy entire disks in a similar fashion. Just go up to the Wizard menu and select Copy Disk Wizard and follow the instructions. Using a product like this is much easier than delving around in the depths of Windows. Just remember to back up first.