Once upon a time, anyone wanting to mess about with disk partitions went out and bought PartitionMagic. But times have changed and the magic has gone out of what's now a Symantec product, a lack of development leaving it looking outdated with no support for Vista, let alone Windows 7. Others have, naturally, come forward to fill the void, among them Chinese developer Easeus with its Partition Master product.

Partition Master is available in several guises. We downloaded and tested the Professional edition which can be used with 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows supporting all of the desktop versions from Windows 2000 (SP4 required) up to and including Vista. There's also a free Home user version offering similar features on 32-bit platforms only, plus a Server edition ($149) and a so-called Unlimited edition which, for $399, can be used on as many desktops and/or servers as you want.

The Easeus software can be used with almost any IDE, SATA or SCSI hard disk. It also works with USB and Firewire drives, but other removable disks are a no-no and there's no support for the Windows dynamic disk format. The smallest capacity it can handle is 2GB and the largest 1.5TB, with support for up to 32 disks per system and both NTFS and older FAT formats. Partition Master can also be used with disk arrays, although most come with their own software so that's not a big selling point.

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We had no problems installing or using the Easeus software, which looks a lot like its Symantec role model. Start the program and the available disks and partitions are graphically mapped, alongside the various tools needed to manage them. Unsurprisingly, it also delivers similar functionality, with tools to, for example, create, copy and delete partitions, change their size and format and do so without losing data.

Some of the other tools let you hide partitions, change the assigned drive letter and explore the disk content, but changes aren't made immediately. Instead they're queued up and executed when ready - by clicking the “Apply” button - with major changes likely to require some time to complete and, in some cases, a re-boot.

In our tests Partition Master proved quick and reliable. We used it to create, shrink and expand a number of partitions on test PCs running XP and Vista and were able to boot and use the new partitions as normal. Similarly we were able to add new partitions in the freed-up disk space, as well as use the software to copy partitions from one disk to another. However, if you're looking for a tool to replicate disks as part of a PC rollout, imaging tools are likely to be quicker and easier and don't require the disks to be attached to the same system.

Another tip is to go for the free Home edition if you don't need 64-bit support. The separate utility to build bootable CD/DVDs isn't included in that, but otherwise it does the same job as the Professional Edition.

Our only real issue was with the documentation, which was poorly translated from the Chinese. Some of the interface also suffered in this respect, but for the most part Partition Master was easy to understand and use, enabling us to get on with the job of managing disks and partitions with a minimum of fuss.

A Partition Magic lookalike, Partition Master takes over where its role model leaves off, adding support for all the latest 32-bit and 64-bit Windows platforms including Vista. It can be used with almost any kind of disk, including USB and Firewire devices, and offers tools to create, copy and delete partitions, plus resize and convert to different formats without losing data.