| Company / developer | Patrick Verner |
|---|---|
| OS family | Unix-like |
| Working state | Current |
| Source model | Free and open source software |
| Latest stable release | 2011_12_30 / December 30, 2011 |
| Available language(s) | Multilingual |
| Supported platforms | IA-32, x86-64 |
| Kernel type | Linux (Monolithic) |
| Default user interface | Openbox 3.5.0 |
| Official website | www.partedmagic.com |
Parted Magic is a computer operating system based on GNU/Linux and is distributed as free and open source software. It is named after GParted, an open source partitioning tool, and the distribution is primarily designed for the purpose of disk partitioning and data recovery.[1]
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The distribution is directly bootable by CD or USB flash drive on PC hardware, and does not require installation, or the presence of an installed operating system. This allows its use as a recovery tool, as well as a tool to configure new systems. Unlike most Linux distributions, it does not include a method for permanent installation (although this may be performed manually).[2]
Although originally designed for mechanical hard disk drives, Parted Magic is suitable for use also with solid state drives and can perform a secure erase (a method to return a drive to its factory state). Corsair, a major SSD manufacturer, recommends its use as "the most common and user-friendly tool" for performing a secure erase on its drives.[3]
Parted Magic supports reading and writing to a variety of modern file systems, including ext3, ext4, FAT and NTFS, and as such is able to access disk drives formatted for use under Microsoft Windows and GNU/Linux systems.
The distribution includes local network and Internet support, and comes with the Firefox web browser.[4]
Parted Magic has received positive reviews from mainstream technical magazines and websites,[5][6] PC World noting in particular ability to recover data from multiple operating systems and its free cost, "About the only other thing I can say about Parted Magic, besides that it's a must-download for your toolkit, is that it's free".[7]
As of version 11.11.11, Parted Magic supports Intel x86 and x86-64 processors natively, and requires a computer with at least an i586 Intel-compatible processor and 175MB of RAM.[8]