Go out, buy a new computer and may find it ships with a huge 500GB drive. That's fantastic, until you find it's either pre-configured as one large block or as six small partitions where the manufacturer thinks you need a system, media, work, files, backup and other partitions. There's little point backing up your data to another partition on the same drive, so that partition can be deleted. Snag is, Windows doesn't ship with a decent consumer-friendly partitioning tool, so you need to look elsewhere.

Paragon Partition Manager 9 Express is a free tool that should enable home users manage their basic partitioning requirements. You can create a new partition, delete an existing partition or resize a small partition. Many of the more advanced functions are reserved for the commercial personal or professional edition, but it's enough for basic home use. Note that the Express version is 32-bit only.

Paragon Partition Manager 9 Express link.

14 Nov 2008