Spfdisk Partition Manager
SPFDisk (Special Fdisk) Partition Manager Page 1 of 1 Misc LinksAdsAdvertisementLatest Forum TopicsPosted byon Oct 14 2013, 11:52:23 pmPosted byon Sep 23 2013, 5:37:59 pmPosted byon Sep 23 2013, 5:40:56 pmPosted byon Sep 23 2013, 5:54:09 pmPosted byon Aug 13 2013, 6:48:08 pmSPFDisk (Special Fdisk) Partition ManagerGreat features and it's free!By Red SquirrelThere are various open source/freeware partition managers out there. One that I've been using and found to be great is SPF Disk. (SPecial Fdisk). It's basically like fdisk but has more options, and is more user friendly.I will give a simple overview of the program and it's key features that make it stand out from other partition tools. In fact it has features that even non-free tools that I've tried don't have, such as the ability to edit the hard drive, in raw mode. Probably not something you want to do unless you know what you're doing, but it's great to know it's possible to do.
Here is a screen shot of it in action:Edit hard disk in raw mode (not recomended if you have no clue what you're doing, but it's fun anyway)Also this is a great way to retrieve files that are unlinked from the file system, though it would not be easy to find and recognize unless they are text files. It's both in hex and ascii to make it easier to read since at some point it's more understandable to read the hex then the ascii. Ex: 00 is nothing, but it shows a. In ascii, but if you type a. You don't get 00 but rather 2E. So to 'zero out' a section you'd want to type 00 in hex.
I was actually able to edit a text file through the program, then go and open it in dos edit and see the changes. It's pretty neat to be able to raw edit the hard disk. Oh and best thing is, you can save sectors as files, so if you find stuff that you want, you can save it to a file and retrieve it. In this case you'd probably want to save it on a partition other then the one you are working on, if you are doing data recovery.
But for actual data recovery I would recommend a program that will find the stuff for you but this is good too for emergencies. It's free, and free software to read the HDD in raw mode and restore stuff is not easy to find.Stuff found from some system file that is 'deleted'. This drive actually got formatted many times and put various non-windows OSes on it between those formatsAnother screen shot, this time in view mode instead of edit.
Notice the save to file option. That can get really handy!Another cool feature is the ability to create boot menus.
You can even save a boot menu to a floppy so that you use the floppy to boot to different primary partitions. It would be sort of like a 'key' to enter hidden partitions, though not a very secure one as any other tool could also do the same. But if you use a boot menu on the MBR (normal place to save it) you can password protect it, and easly edit the options for the menu. It's very straightforward. Here's a few screen shots of it in action.Boot menu configuration.This is how a boot menu would look like.
(the invalid drives were not formatted)Another option that I find great is the ability to do a surface scan on a partition AND unallocated space! The scan is very straightforward and appears to be faster then the scandisk one. Just for fun I put in a hard drive that I knew had bad clusters, and sure enough it did find the bad one. The cluster had already been 'patched' but it did not recognize it, so it would be something nice to have.
Unfortunatly though, when it's done it just goes back to the main menu without any type of report, so you can't really leave it on overnight and check after. This really not well thought of but oh well.Disk surface scan with a bad sector, and note that it shows the exact location. Tried accessing that location and it crashed, so imagine what bad sectors can do within an operating system! This HDD should not be used for sensitive data.If there's no bad sectors at least you do get a message.
So if you do a scan over night and come back to nothing, you know there's bad sectors, but if there's that message then you're safe. Notice the nice grammar.:)And obviously this program also has features to partition, though they are very simple like fdisk, so it's those extra options above that make it stand out. One option I would like to see though is that when you resize a partition, that it would automatically fix the data to fit in the new size. Instead it tells you to run a disk organizer. (defrag program I would guess) so for this reason I would not recommend this program to newbies since you could really screw things up.
There also seems to be a bug that you can't make partitions bigger, only smaller. But we have to remember this is a program that is basically suppose to replace fdisk, and not Partition Magic, so compared to fdisk the options are rather nice.Various partition optionsYou can change the partition ID to be the desired type. Must be formated using another tool such as linux format or dos format, depending on what type of partition you want.Also you might have noticed that the spelling of this program is 'all your base are belong to us' style.
The author is not English so the translation is rather good to consider this. There's only a few instances where the gramar is very questionable.You can obtain this program at: just click on the English link.40284 HitsPages: 10 CommentsLatest comments (newest first)Top ArticlesLatest Articles- (669062 reads)- (161180 reads)- (150471 reads)- (139547 reads)- (117240 reads)- (188 reads)- (1225 reads)- (8769 reads)- (18714 reads)- (35906 reads)This site best viewed in a W3C standard browser at 800.600 or higherSite design by Red Squirrel © Copyright 2020 Ryan Auclair/IceTeks, All rights reserved.
Here’s our recommended list of partitioning tools for Linux distributions. These tools let you delete, add, tweak or resize the disk partitioning on your Linux system.Usually, you decide the disk partitions while installing the OS. But, what if you need to modify the partitions sometime after the installation.
You just can’t go back to the setup screen in any way. So, that is where partition managers (or accurately disk partition managers) come in handy.In most of the cases, you do not need to separately install the partition manager because it comes pre-installed. Also, it is worth noting that you can either opt for a command-line based partition manager or something with a GUI. GPartedcould perhaps be the most popular GUI-based partition manager available for Linux distributions.
You might have it pre-installed in some distributions. If you don’t, simply search for it in the software center to get it installed.It directly prompts you to authenticate as the root user when you launch it. So, you don’t have to utilize the terminal here – at all. After authentication, it analyzes the devices and then lets you tweak the disk partitions. You will also find an option to “Attempt Data Rescue” in case of data loss or accidental deletion of files. KDE Partition Manager Kde Partition ManagerKDE Partition Manager should probably come pre-installed on KDE-based Linux distros.
Partition Manager Software
But, if it isn’t there – you can search for it on the software center to easily get it installed.If you didn’t have it pre-installed, you might get the notice that you do not have administrative privileges when you try launching it. Without admin privileges, you cannot do anything. So, in that case, type in the following command to get started: sudo partitionmanagerIt will scan your devices and then you will be able to create, move, copy, delete, and resize partitions. You can also import/export partition tables along with a lot of other options available to tweak. Fdiskis a command line utility that comes baked in with every unix-like OS. Fret not, even though it requires you to launch a terminal and enter commands – it isn’t very difficult.
However, if you are too confused while using a text-based utility, you should stick to the GUI applications mentioned above. They all do the same thing.To launch fdisk, you will have to be the root user and specify the device to manage partitions. Here’s an example for the command to start with: sudo fdisk /dev/sdcYou can refer to for the list of commands and more details on how it works. GNU Parted Command Line. Gnu PartedYet another command-line utility that you can find pre-installed on your Linux distro. You just need to enter the following command to get started: sudo partedWrapping UpI wouldn’t forget to mention as one of the alternatives to the list of partition managers.
Partition Information
However, it has not been maintained for years now – so I do not recommend using it.What do you think about the partition managers mentioned here? Did I miss any of your favorites? Let me know and I’ll update this list of partition manager for Linux with your suggestion.