Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The box claims that the product will convert partitions on USB 2.0 drives up to 300GB. That appears to be untrue. The box also claims "Award-Winning Support". Given the complete inability to solve or even diagnose the problem on 2 different occasions, I wonder just what kind of award they won. Least capable? Most downsized? Here's the chat transcript. You be the judge. Vijay: Hi, thank you for contacting Symantec Live Technical Support. My name is Vijay. How may I help you? Paul: I have just installed Partition Magic 8.05. I have a 250 GB USB drive which I want to convert from NTFS to FAT32. The convert dialog box has all the options grayed out EXCEPT turning the primary partition into a Logical partition. Paul: Is it possible to do the conversion? (This is why I bought Partition Magic in the first place.) Vijay: Before troubleshooting any further, I need to gather some more information from you. May I proceed? Paul: Sure Vijay: Thank you. Vijay: Did you partition the drive into small partitions? Paul: No. It is one partition. Vijay: Is it external drive or internal drive? Paul: By the way, I called on Friday and someone tried to figure this out and was supposed to call back. They never did. Paul: The case number is <nnn>. External drive. Maxtor. USB. 250 GB Vijay: Can you please be on hold while I refer to the documents. This may take 2-3 minutes. Paul: Sure Vijay: Thank you. Vijay: Thank you for being online. Vijay: Paul, does the Partition Magic options are enabled in other internal drives? Paul: Yes, it is enabled for the internal drive. Paul: The box claims that it works for USB 2.0 drives, which is what this one is. Vijay: How many internal hard drives do you have installed in your computer? Paul: It's a notebook computer. There is 1 internal hard drive (100 gb). And there is 1 external USB hard drive (250 gb). The USB drive is directly connected to the computer (no hubs or anything like that). Vijay: How many partitions are there in internal hard drive? Paul: one Paul: Computer is running WinXP Home Paul: Drive is not compressed, encrypted or anything else strange. Vijay: What is the file system of the internal harddrive? Paul: NTFS Vijay: Is the create partition option enabled for external drive? Paul: There are 2 panels on the screen. The top one, labeled "Pick a task..." has a task labeled "Create a new partition" and it is available. Paul: The lower panel, labeled "Partition Operations" has an entry labeled "Create Partition" which is GRAYED OUT. Paul: Same menu availability for both the internal and external drives. Vijay: Do you get the option Convert when you right click on the external hard drive? Paul: Yes. And it pops up a dialog box with everything UNAVAILABLE except "logical partition". Paul: If I do the same thing on the internal drive, I DO have the option to convert to FAT32. Vijay: Does the external drive is labelled as 'Unallocated' ? Paul: Not sure what you mean. Vijay: Do you see the external hard drive in Partition Magic console is marked as unallocated or written as unallocated in it? Paul: No. It's all NTFS. Vijay: Alright. Paul: MAXTOR250 (E:) NTFS 239,366.9 Vijay: This issue could be due to size of the Harddrive. I suggest that you diveide the hadrdrive by creating a new partition in it and then try to convert both partitions. Paul: That won't work for me. The whole point here was to mount the drive on a wireless router. I believe that it only recognizes a single partition. Paul: The Partition Magic box claims that it works on partitions up to 300 GB and on USB drives. Paul: This one's only 250 GB. It's less than 35% used. Paul: There are no open files that I know of. Paul: Is there a way to force all files closed on the drive? Paul: (Other than "Remove Hardware" which would keep Partition Magic from seeing it too.) Vijay: Converting the file system will delete all the data that is present on the drive. Paul: Not according to the documentation. Paul: I'm not trying to reFORMAT the drive. I'm trying to convert it. Paul: And again, the box claims "Converts partitions among FAT, FAT32, and NTFS without losing data." Paul: Vijay: Is there second line support available? I'd like this to get escalated. Thanks. Vijay: There may be chances of losing the data. it is recommended to backup the data before converting teh file system. Paul: Of course. Paul: Please connect me to the second line support people. Thanks Vijay: Can you please be on hold while I refer to the documents. This may take 2-3 minutes. Paul: Vijay: Are you unable to escalate this incident? Vijay: Thank you for being online. Vijay: You will be getting an email within 24 hours, if I escalte the issue to my supervisor. Is that OK with you? Paul: Vijay: I logged the request on Friday. I was supposed to get a call back THAT DAY. No call on Friday. No call on Saturday. No call on Sunday. Vijay: Are you getting the option to convert the partition to Logical while you select convert option? Paul: Now you've tried to solve the problem and were unable to resolve it. Paul: I'd like someone to work on this problem NOW. Vijay: I promise you that you receive a mail within 24 hours. Paul: Yes. As I said at the beginning "LOGICAL" is the only choice available in that dialog box. Paul: Vijay. I have no reason to doubt you personally, but quite frankly Symantec is 0 for 1 right now on follow through and 0 for 2 on problem solving. I'd like to get this problem solved today. Vijay: In order to convert the partition to FAT32, you can take a backup of the drive and format the drive and select File system as FAT32. Paul: Sure. And I can drive over it with my car and go buy a new drive formatted with FAT32. I bought Partition Magic so that I wouldn't have to do that. Vijay: I apologize for the inconvenience caused. Paul: Thanks for the apology. But let's solve the problem. Paul: You do have supervisors there today, don't you? Vijay: As the supervisors are busy with resolving the other escalated issues, you would receive a mail within 24 hours. Paul: Well, since my request is now 48 hours old, seems like I ought to be right at the top of the queue, doesn't it? Vijay: Please note taht we do not have access to records of Voice support. Since you have contacted Chat support now with the issue, you will receive a mail within 24 hours, or you can get back to us through Chat. Paul: Ok Vijay. Send me the email. I'll be waiting.