Merging Two Partitions

[DWCAce]

 

I'm sure I've done it before, but it's been awhile.

 

I tried to merge these two today, but for some reason Vista won't let me. I've also tried extending the primary partion, but it says it's exceeded it's limit.

 

Any suggestions?

[FastCargo]

Or...instead of trying to make sense of that, use Partition Wizard 4.2. It's a free program that will allow you to manipulate partitions (even non-Windows partitions) pretty easily.

 

The problem is that XP/Vista/Win7 will not let you move 'backwards' (to the left) to merge or expand a partition. If your partitions were reversed, it wouldn't be a big deal...XP/Vista/Win7 would be able to take care of that easily by just expanding the partition to the 'right'.

 

So, use Partition Wizard instead to move the whole partition to the beginning of the drive. Now, depending, this may wipe your MBR, so I would HIGHLY recommend:

 

A) Making a System Recovery Disk.

B) BACKUP your partition.

 

Use PW to 'move' the partition to the beginning of the drive...then use the System Recovery Disk to rebuild your MBR in case it gets wiped.

 

Be careful my friend...

 

FC

[DWCAce]

Thanks for the input guys!

[JediMaster]

For whatever reason, when moving partitions to the left the data inside is moved as well so the empty space is always to the right. That means you'd have to move the very Windows files now in use to do that, so it can't happen. That's why you need a 3rd party util.