Partition Program That Can Merge Partitions?

[The Flying Cow]

I recently formatted my friend's lappie (yesterday night, to be precise) and did so on a ridiculously small partition (1,85GB) in order to keep her material on the other two partitions.

However, 1.85 is too tight and I want to make it bigger.

I grabbed Norton PartitionMagic (the small 8MB version) and tried to use it to no avail - the program was only useful to convert the remaining partitions from FAT32 to NTFS, but didn't do anything AFA resizing the main one is concerned.

Tired of it, I grabbed O&O PartitionManager, and tried to do this action but apparently this software doesn't support it. It says it can extend and resize partitions but it won't allow me to use up the 2.59GB of free space I cropped off of another partition for it (meanwhile I made these 2.59GB into another partition, NTFS, to see if that would change things but nada).

Thus I find myself stuck. No, I will not format the whole thing again seeing as that option is not available, and am wondering which program will allow me to advance with my aforementioned venture (merging of 2.59+1.85 so the Windaes partition is sufficiently big to not be a pain in the rear with the whole "insufficient space" bollocks).

Any help appreciated.

TFC.

[lynx]

You haven't said as much, but I suspect the problem is that these partitions are not adjacent.

I don't believe it is possible to merge partitions, but it is certainly possible to add unused space onto a partition. The only restriction is that the unused space must be immediately after the partition you wish to enlarge. In that situation both PartitionMagic and PartitionManager can both extend the partition.

Assuming that the free space follows another partition, you need to move that partition so that the free space follows the partition you wish to enlarge, and I suppose you don't have space to do that either.

The only real solution is to make a copy of the partition(s) which are in the way (onto another drive). Next you increase the small partition. Finally you restore the partition(s) you saved at the start.

[SonsOfLiberty]

gparted-live

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

Best one I've ever used, plus it's free

I've came across that before, all I did was move data to another partition, then delete it and re-make it, but G-parted should do the trick for ya.

[The Flying Cow]

You haven't said as much, but I suspect the problem is that these partitions are not adjacent.

I don't believe it is possible to merge partitions, but it is certainly possible to add unused space onto a partition. The only restriction is that the unused space must be immediately after the partition you wish to enlarge. In that situation both PartitionMagic and PartitionManager can both extend the partition.

Assuming that the free space follows another partition, you need to move that partition so that the free space follows the partition you wish to enlarge, and I suppose you don't have space to do that either.

The only real solution is to make a copy of the partition(s) which are in the way (onto another drive). Next you increase the small partition. Finally you restore the partition(s) you saved at the start.

In terms of side-to-side, this is the way things are:

(C) - 1.86GB w/ 44.48MB free || (E) - 29.86GB w/22.98GB free (this is where I cropped 2.59GB off) || Free Space (2.59GB) || (D) - 21.57GB w/ 5.60GB free.

As things stand, I can't extend (C) beyond it's current size. Odd because on PartitionMagic it did supply that option, the only bummer being that the actual program wouldn't do it, even after restart.

O&O won't let me.

I'll try your suggestion SoL, hoping it isn't a faulty app..

Just one thing lynx. You say "next you increase the small partition". But if I can't increase the small partition now (and the one that follows it has quite a lot of free space, as you can see (22.98/29.86GB), then would deleting it do the trick is that what you're suggesting?

[roger200]

gparted-live

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

Best one I've ever used, plus it's free

I've came across that before, all I did was move data to another partition, then delete it and re-make it, but G-parted should do the trick for ya.

+1

I used Partition Magic before but the GParted Live-cd is the best partition tool. It feels safer using a livecd than letting a program do the operations under boot.