Setec Partition Wizard For Windows

A free, open-source disk utility that does everything the paid tools do — without the monthly subscription.

Tired of Acronis, EaseUS, and Partition Magic charging you $50/year for basic disk operations? So were we. Setec Partition Wizard is a comprehensive C++17/Qt6 disk utility covering partition management, formatting, recovery, imaging, diagnostics, security, maintenance, and SD card recovery — all in one tool, completely free.

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Features

Partition Management

• Create, delete, resize, move, merge, and split partitions with a visual disk map
• Full MBR, GPT, and Apple Partition Map support
• GParted-style operation queue — preview all changes before applying them
• Partition alignment optimization for SSDs and 4K sector drives
• Raw partition table editing for advanced users

Formatting — Every Filesystem You Can Think Of

Modern Windows: NTFS, FAT32/16/12, exFAT, ReFS

Linux / Open Source: ext2/3/4, Btrfs, XFS, ZFS, JFS, ReiserFS, Reiser4, F2FS, JFFS2, NILFS2, Linux swap

Apple: HFS+, APFS (read-only detection), HFS Classic, MFS

Legacy & Retro (because why not): HPFS (OS/2), Minix, Amiga Fast File System (AFFS/OFS), BeOS BFS, QNX4/6, UFS (BSD), FFS, Xenix, Coherent, SysV, VxFS, ADFS (Acorn), UDF, ISO9660, RomFS, CramFS, SquashFS, VFAT, UMSDOS

Console & Gaming: FATX (Xbox / Xbox 360), STFS (Xbox 360 packages), GDFX (Xbox Game Disc), PS2 Memory Card

Virtual Disk Images: VHD, VHDX (Hyper-V), VMDK (VMware), QCOW2 (QEMU), VDI (VirtualBox)

Disc & Archive Images: RVZ/WIA (Dolphin Wii), WUA (Cemu Wii U), WBFS (Wii Backup), NRG (Nero), MDF (Alcohol 120%), CDI (DiscJuggler)

SD Card Recovery

• Detects SD/microSD cards Windows cannot see — finds cards with corrupted partition tables, interrupted formats, and RAW/uninitialized media
• Scans by bus type, removable flag, and model keywords — even finds cards with no partition table at all
• Full repair workflow: clean partition table → reinitialize → format to FAT32/exFAT/NTFS
• Auto-selects exFAT for cards over 32 GB
• Uses raw IOCTL operations (IOCTL_DISK_CREATE_DISK, IOCTL_DISK_SET_DRIVE_LAYOUT_EX) to bypass Windows volume manager limitations

Recovery

• Deleted partition recovery — scans for lost MBR/GPT partition entries
• File carving — recovers files by signature from MFT records, FAT directories, ext inodes, and raw byte-pattern carving
• Boot repair — rebuilds MBR boot code, fixes Windows BCD, restores GPT backup headers
• Supports recovery across MBR, GPT, and ext superblock structures

Disk Imaging

• Full disk imaging — create and restore complete disk/partition images
• ISO flashing — write ISO/IMG files to USB drives and SD cards with hybrid ISO and UEFI boot detection
• Disk cloning — sector-by-sector or smart clone (skips unallocated space)
• Checksum verification — SHA-256, MD5, and CRC32 on all imaging operations

S.M.A.R.T. & Diagnostics

• S.M.A.R.T. monitoring for both ATA and NVMe drives — read all attributes, thresholds, and health status
• Disk benchmarks — sequential and random read/write, queue depth 1 and 32
• Surface scan — find bad sectors before they eat your data

Security

• FIDO2/WebAuthn — enumerate connected security keys, manage PINs, factory reset, create/verify credentials via the Windows WebAuthn API
• Encrypted vaults — create AES-256 encrypted virtual disk containers (XTS, CBC, and GCM modes) with PBKDF2 key derivation
• Boot authentication keys — create USB-based HMAC-SHA256 tokens for application access control
• All cryptography uses Windows CNG (BCrypt) — zero external dependencies, no OpenSSL

Maintenance

• Secure erase — multiple wipe standards:
  • Single-pass zero fill
  • DoD 5220.22-M (3-pass and 7-pass variants)
  • Gutmann 35-pass method
  • Random fill and custom byte patterns
• Boot repair with MBR reconstruction and BCD rebuilding
• SD Card Recovery — repair cards that Windows refuses to recognize

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Screenshots

Coming soon — the UI features a tabbed interface with visual disk maps, operation queues, and real-time progress tracking.

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System Requirements

Requirement	Details
OS	Windows 10/11 x64
Privileges	Administrator (required for raw disk access)
Disk Space	~100 MB
Runtime	Qt 6 libraries (included in release builds)

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Building From Source

# Debug build
cmake --preset default
cmake --build --preset default

# Release build
cmake --preset release
cmake --build --preset release

Build Requirements

• CMake 3.25+
• Qt 6 (msvc2022_64 kit)
• MSVC (Visual Studio 2022+)
• Ninja (recommended, bundled with Qt)

See docs/build.md for detailed build instructions, troubleshooting, and architecture overview.

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Architecture

src/
├── core/               # spw_core static library
│   ├── common/         # Types, Result<T>, Error, Constants, Logging
│   ├── disk/           # RawDiskHandle, VolumeHandle, DiskEnumerator,
│   │                   # SmartReader, PartitionTable, FilesystemDetector
│   ├── filesystem/     # FormatEngine (all filesystem formatters)
│   ├── operations/     # GParted-style operation queue
│   ├── recovery/       # Partition recovery, file carving, boot repair
│   ├── diagnostics/    # Benchmarks, surface scan
│   ├── imaging/        # Disk cloner, image creator/restorer, ISO flasher
│   ├── maintenance/    # Secure erase, SD card recovery
│   └── security/       # Encrypted vaults, FIDO2, boot auth
├── ui/                 # spw_ui static library (Qt Widgets)
│   ├── MainWindow      # Tab container with visual disk map
│   ├── tabs/           # One tab per feature area
│   └── widgets/        # DiskMapWidget (GParted-style visual partition map)
└── app/                # Executable entry point

Design Decisions

• No exceptions — monadic Result<T> error handling throughout
• No OpenSSL — all crypto via Windows BCrypt (CNG API)
• RAII everything — disk handles auto-close on destruction
• Operation queue — changes are queued, previewed, then applied atomically
• Removable-only safety — ISO flasher refuses to write to fixed disks
• Admin required — raw disk I/O requires elevation; app checks and prompts
• SD card recovery uses raw IOCTLs — bypasses volume manager to reach cards Windows won't mount

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A Note for the Curious

"Don't forget to look UP UP at space."

Press F5 while the application is running. Something unexpected happens.

A riddle. A dark void. And a very particular file that ships with every build — one that looks like garbage in a hex editor, but says something in a text editor. Find it. Read it. Then find the file that only your build can produce.

Those who grew up cleaning floors on the SCS Deepship 86 might feel right at home. The janitor always did have a knack for finding hidden things.

Roger Wilco was here.

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome! This project exists because security and disk management tools should be free and accessible to everyone.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Submit a pull request

Please note: the third_party/hwdiag/ module is distributed as a pre-compiled library. Source files for that module are not included in the repository.

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License

Copyright (c) 2026 Setec

Don't forget to look UP UP at space,