While the standard Windows partitioning tools have improved a little in recent years, they’re still on the basic side. To put it politely. If you really want to take control of your hard drive layout then you’ll need a little help, and Paragon’s Partition Manager 11 SE Personal is a great place to start.

The program doesn’t simply allow you to create, format and resize partitions, for instance. You also get options to move or merge them, redistribute free space between existing partitions, undelete or recover a lost partition, and more.

There are a host of bonus functions, too. Partition Manager can back up a drive’s MBR, first hard disk track, individual partition or entire hard drive, for instance. A Linux-based disaster recovery disc helps you to restore backups or otherwise get an unbootable Windows PC working again. And advanced options include the ability to convert the file system on a drive, update a drive’s MBR, and even view and edit a partition at the sector level.

You don’t have to get involved with this level of complexity unless you really want to, though, and for the most part Partition Manager 11 is very easy to use. A simple front-end menu means its core functions are never more than a click or two away, and well-designed wizards are always on hand to walk you through the more difficult steps.

A simple front-end menu makes it easy to find the function you need

To obtain your free copy of Partition Manager 11, first visit the Downloadcrew Giveaway site on Friday, March 23rd, between 00:00 and 23:59 CET.

Log in (creating a free account if you don’t have one already) and download the installation file.

And this time, licensing is handled by the program itself. Just launch Setup, click “Registration” and a browser window should open at Paragon’s registration page (but if it doesn’t, click here instead).

Complete the form, click Submit and you’ll be emailed your product code and licence key within minutes.

Please note, there are three restrictions on this giveaway.

First, you must obtain your serial code on Friday, before the offer expires. Which means that, at a minimum, you should follow the registration process we describe above right after download.

Second, the Personal Edition is strictly for personal, non-commercial use only.

And third, a change in Microsoft’s license conditions means Paragon can no longer distribute their Windows PE-based recovery discs, so Partition Manager 11 SE Personal now comes with a Linux-based environment, instead. Don’t let that put you off, though, it’s still very easy to use, and in fact if you’re only using the core partitioning tools then you’ll notice very little difference.