The full commercial version of Paragon Partition Manager 8.5 Personal can be obtained here free until September 14th

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/partitionmanager/index

Details of all the things it can do, can be seen here

http://www.partition-manager.com/home/personal/

Has a good defragger as well I think.

Nice find Hazel!

Edit:
Received my serial straight away!

Nice find Hazel, I'll have to see how it differs from Paragon 8 Special Edition, which a few of us picked up a small while back.

I'm downloading it anyway, as I can't pass up a bargain.

thanks Hazel

This ones Vista compatible so could be worth saving for the um, err inevitable (maybe).

Just checked my V8 Special Edition. Didn't know it had a defragger.

Have you used the defrag Humpty?

No not as yet Dennis as I have PerfectDisk 7 for XP and PD 8 for Vista.

I did read about it where a fella tested a few defraggers and he reckons Paragon's defragger was way up there, if not the best.
Found the article here

Dennis that was Paragon Hard Drive Manager. Confusing I know but after hunting round their site found this statement - "Partition Manager's functionality is fully covered by Hard Disk Manager's one."

Yep JD, Paragon Hard Drive Manager 8 will cover all of what the Partition Manager 8.5 can do but only for XP.

I have PHDM 8 but unfortunately not compatible with Vista so this download should come in handy for my Vista installs.

BTW The Paragon Hard Drive Manager download STILL seems to be active for anyone (using XP) wanting to try that instead

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/hdmanager8/index :

Thanks a lot for that JD, I'm pleased you knew that, because I would never have spotted the difference, and of course you've saved me the trouble of finding out the hard way.

And cheers for hunting that statement out.

@JDPower:

How do you find out about the "free" offers from computeractive? I have looked through their webiste and have never found any references to those offers...and they are really wonderful offers. Are you signed up for some type of notification from them?

Thanks

The magazine comes out every 2 weeks in the UK. I buy it as I like it, it has offers and user friendly info on it.

And it doesn't cost much

Thank you.

thanks for that hazel. i was using the demo version before and it was frustrating. cheers!

Thanks again, Hazelnut.

FYI: I downloaded it and started the install process, clicked on the "registration" box, was sent to the website, entered a name and email, and had my registration numbers all within about 5 minutes. Saved the email to a .txt file.

Shazam.

Now a question. I didn't finish the install, as I already have ver. 8, which is OK for XP. Is there any sort of tricky time limit on the installation? One would think that one could install it any time in the future, and use the saved registration numbers.

Looks like a really good program.

Thanks alot Hazelnut for such a good find.

I got hold of Paragon Hard Drive manager quite some time ago, and then had to do that OS reinstall only a few weeks ago.

The original saved registration number worked fine again. Not a definitive answer, but seems like it would probably be OK.

Thanks, Dennis, that answers it.

Hello
I'm somewhat confused here. Can Paragon hard disk manager be used in Vista or only Xp. I downloaded the Paragon Partition manager but it has no defrag option
Thanks

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8.5 is Vista compatible and Paragon Partition Manager 8.5 (Vista compatible) also has a defrag option, within one of the menus.

Chris/vnunet.com

Thanks Chris
I found it but not sure if it is actually working. Does a graph or some type of chart pop up to show you the progress? I had a pop up that said to click on "Apply" but didn't know where to look for it. Also is it compatible with diskeeper which I have running in the background?

Thanks again

(removed post due to me being a plonker )

It is not very intuitive, I've just spent 10 minutes trying to work out why nothing was working when I selected defrag then clicked yes. You have to click 'Apply' on the top toolbar (or at least thats how it is in HD Manager). It doesn't even tell you that in the help section, just says select defrag then hit yes

I'll pass that on, I think. I know Paragon Total Defrag 2008 is out later this year, which is an updated version of their defrag tool.

If anyone has any notes, ideas or thoughts on Paragon Software improvements, let me know. They genuinely listen to our ideas and are keen to listen to end-users.

Chris/vnunet.com.

Hi Chris, nice to read your comments.

I've used Paragon Hard Drive Manager on 4 different occasions over the last couple of months. Partitioned my single hard drive, redistributed the space twice, and defragged both drives.

Almost forgot, made backup disk images of both drives.

So to me it's a must have program, and it has worked flawlessly each time, but I have to back up JD's comments. The process of carrying out any type of operation on the OS partition, is not really explained very well.

Besides taking some time to realise that the "Wizards" only set up the parameters of an operation, it was even more difficult to work out what do after pressing the green check button.

The operation starts, but then seems to stop as if you've done something wrong. The option to "restart now" felt to me as if I was taking a gamble as I had no idea what was going to happen if I selected that option.

The consequences of doing something wrong when partitioning a drive or redistributing the free space are pretty scary. They felt that way to me anyway.

I don't think I did anything wrong, but the help file didn't help at all with this particular stage of things.

I think the program would be much easier to use if working on the OS partition was as smooth and straightforward as it is working on a non OS partition. More clearly explained anyway.

Hope this makes sense to you.

Dennis

Hi all just a question : is this a freeware to keep until Sept 15th or it expires? also does this mannage disk merge?

It's a freebie to keep as long as you want it, and if you mean merge partitions, the answers yes. See Hazels 2nd link for all the features.

http://www.partition-manager.com/home/personal/