I have always been a big fan of hard drive management programs but I’ve never seen a good one for free. Having a partition management program can really get you out of a jam, help speed things up, and even give you a better understanding of the current status of your drives. Not to mention that these programs can take a lot of the confusion and apprehension away from such tasks that the common end user may even find a bit overwhelming.
Most drive management applications give you an interface in which you can use to control different aspects of your computer’s hard drives. However with SwissKnife, today’s Download of the Week, you are not limited to just your internal hard drives you can also manage removable drives as well. It is a great way to keep track of all these new USB storage devices such as: hubs, readers, external hard drives, and card reader/writers that we all have plugged in anymore. I know that with all my gadgets plugged in I’m pushing over 20 drives and believe me this is when it’s nice to have a program that can create a convenient environment in which to oversee the big scheme of things.
Before SwissKnife I would use My Computer to view and perform basic drive procedures depending on the Operating System. If you have either XP or 2000 operating systems then you can use the Administrators Tools to manage a good deal of these drive management functions, however, in any other Windows Operating System you don’t have this option. SwissKnife can create, delete and format partitions on your hard disk drives almost effortlessly. Not to mention that Swissknife can be used interchangeably between several different Operating Systems.
Here’s a list of what SwissKnife can do for you:
- Formats faster than the OS (click on chart for details)
- Allows change of cluster size during Full format or Quick Format
- Divides a single hard drive into one or more partitions
- Supports Hi-Speed USB, PCMCIA, SATA, SCSI, USB 1.1, and FireWire® external drives
- Supports Fixed and Removable disk formats
- Supports FAT, FAT32 & NTFS systems
- Allows creation of a single partition of up to 2048GB of FAT32 or NTFS file systems.
- Full format or Quick Format of existing partitions
- Selective partitions can be modified for optimum flexibility
Supported Operating Systems:
- Windows XP (Home, MCE, Professional and Server edition, all service packs)
- Windows 2000 (Professional and Server edition, all service packs)
- Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and Server
- Windows Me
- Windows 98 (First and Second Editions)
- Windows 95b (OSR2 Edition)
So there you have it – a quick and easy way to deal with those “mounting” number of drives (that’s a geek joke). Anyway, I hope you find the program useful and if so then I have done my job. Now, however, I am sad to say that I must go as there are downloads out there waiting to be discovered and delivered onto you, our fantastic Worldstart Readers. So, I bid you adieu until next week and wish you all Happy Holidays.