http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/articles/springcleaning/

BootIt Next Generation v1.29f TeraByte Unlimited

Recent Script Sentry debugging experiences made me realize that, much as I hate the concept of Windows XP's Product Activation, I was going to have to purchase and install WinXP to better debug SS. Yet, I didn't want to lose my Windows 98 debugging capability. This meant installing onto a new partition.

Unfortunately, all my hard drives were nearly full. I had enough free disk space for WinXP, but I preferred installing to a new partition. Luckily I knew that PartitionMagic could handle this type of job. That's when I stumbled onto CNet's User Opinions of it. CNet itself gave PartitionMagic an 8 out of 10, but the users gave it only 65% positive. While I'm sure PartitionMagic would have been able to do the job, I decided to look further for other options. That's when I stumbled upon BootIt Next Generation.

Compared to PartitionMagic's 65% positive rating, BootIt NG received an overwhelming 93% positive. I was quite impressed with the set of features they claimed (NTFS and FAT-32 partitioning, drive imaging either to hard drive or directly to CD, an integrated boot manager) and even more impressed with the price. BootIt NG was only $29.95 compared to PartitionMagic's $69.95. I decided to try out its free thirty-day trial.

I chose one drive to repartition and copied/backed up my data. This particular hard drive was a 25GB drive that had only a few gigabytes free. I then moved as much data as I could off of it and backed up the rest. The only data left on the drive was mirrored elsewhere and purposely left to see whether BootIt NG would keep my data intact. With my data safe, I took the plunge.

BootIt NG is a 372.5KB download and installs onto a floppy disk. You then boot your computer with the floppy to install BootIt. BootIt will attempt to find a clean partition to install itself to, but if it can't find any (like during my installation), it will install on a "shared" partition (the C drive). I did find this installation a bit nerve-wracking, considering that I wasn't sure exactly what it was doing at the time, but BootIt did install smoothly. I was now ready to begin partitioning.

When I rebooted my computer I was presented with a basic boot menu with only one OS option, Windows 98 (the only OS I had installed). Along with that is a "Maintenance" option. Clicking that displayed a simple desktop with various BootIt's various functionality cleanly displayed (see screenshot below).

(Click for larger image)

I clicked on "Partition Work" and selected the hard drive I wanted to re-partition. Then I selected the new size of my current partition (5GB). I was prevented from setting the partition too small with a built-in minimum determined by the amount of data still on the drive. With all the settings in place, I let BootIt loose and sat back to watch the progress bar slowly move. It took about 30 minutes to repartition the 25GB drive into a 5GB drive and 20GB of unallocated space.

Of course, I wasn't going to be happy with a 5GB drive and 20GB going wasted, so I selected the unallocated section and clicked the "Create Partition" button. I was presented with an easy to understand screen that let me select all of my options. About the only thing that might be confusing to computer novices is the sheer number of file systems that BootIt supports. Everything from FAT-12, FAT-16, FAT-32, HPFS/NTFS, Linux, Solaris, and even BeOS were displayed. However, if this is a downside for the novice, it's a boon for the advanced user. Luckily for me, I knew that I wanted a FAT-32 drive and quickly selected that.

The new partition took about a half an hour, with most of the time being spent performing a surface scan of the hard drive to make sure there were no errors. Once it was done, I rebooted back into Windows and saw my one hard drive split in two exactly as I had requested. Even better, my original partition (now only 5GB big) still had the data that I had left on it completely intact.

While I haven't scratched the surface of what this program can do, I completely feel that it's worth the $29.95 registration fee. Especially considering that it can replace two $69.95 programs (Partition Magic and Drive Image), which saves close to $110. (Easily enough to buy a copy of Windows XP with money left over.) While BootIt NG might not be for computer novices, I would definitely recommend it to moderate to advanced users.