Paragon's Partition Manager 10 for Virtual Machines is a wonder, and it's free

It's no secret that good hard drive management is a vital part of PC maintenance, and this is just as true with virtual machines. But a lack of compatible tools means it can be difficult to get your virtual disks in order.

There is an easy solution, though, in Paragon Software's Partition Manager 10 for Virtual Machines. It's a full stand-alone version of Partition Manager, optimized for virtual disks, that includes all the drive management features you'll need: partition tools, defrag, backup and restore, a host of essential troubleshooting and disaster recovery tools and much, much more. Best of all, it's free.

The program comes in the form of a bootable ISO image, which conveniently means it'll work with just about any virtualization package. Just point your VM at the ISO file, tweak it to boot from your optical drive if necessary, and Partition Manager will load, giving you full access to its lengthy list of features.

A full set of partitioning tools, for instance, allows you to create, format, move, resize, delete or undelete partitions on your virtual drives -- and helpful wizards walk you through more complex tasks, like transferring free space from one partition to another, with the minimum of hassle (or risk).

A flexible defrag tool offers plenty of control over how your virtual disks are reorganized, with options to decide where folders are placed on the drive, and how to sort files (by size, modification time, or maybe not at all).

If your VM won't start then Paragon's Boot Corrector may be able to help, as it can spot and resolve many common boot problems. Other disaster recovery options include the ability to update your drive's MBR, or analyze and repair its boot.ini or BCD files. You can even examine and edit the drive at the sector level, if you're confident that you know what you're doing.

Elsewhere, you'll find tools to back up your virtual drive, convert between file systems, and modify low-level details like cluster size, primary slots, serial numbers and more. Partition Manager 10 for Virtual Machines is a powerful free package, then, full of essential features, and we think it's a must-have for anyone who regularly uses virtual machines.