Partitioning

[Guest]

Can a disk be repartitioned which has a master boot area and 2 other
parttitions into 1 global partition?

 

[Ghostrider]

Can a disk be repartitioned which has a master boot area and 2 other
parttitions into 1 global partition?

Yes...by collapsing all of the other partitions and then
setting up the single partition. This is the easy way. And
then there are third-party utilities such as Partition Magic
from Syamtec that can also do the same thing but with some
more flexibility.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Can a disk be repartitioned which has a master boot area and 2 other
parttitions into 1 global partition?

Unfortunately, no version of Windows provides any way of changing the
existing partition structure of the drive nondestructively. The only way to
do what you want is with third-party software. Partition Magic is the
best-known such program, but there are freeware/shareware alternatives. One
such program is BootIt Next Generation. It's shareware, but comes with a
free 30-day trial, so you should be able to do what you want within that 30
days. I haven't used it myself (because I've never needed to use *any* such
program), but it comes highly recommended by several other MVPs here.

Whatever software you use, make sure you have a good backup before
beginning. Although there's no reason to expect a problem, things *can* go
wrong.

 

[Guest]

Hi Werner.

I second Kens' excellent advice about backing up-- just do it before any
operation as potentioaly destructive as merging partitions. Even if you use
an apparently reliable 3rd party program such as Partition Magic, merging
partitions is lengthy and has potential for disaster.(which isn't a disaster
at all if you are backed up, is it?).

Before you start, make sure you understand exactly what your software is
doing during the operation. There are many caveats and potential for
unintended consequences. For example, what are the three partitions
currently being used for? If you have stored some programs in one or both af
the partitions, WinXP could lose track of where they are once you merge
partitions.

Good luck.

Mark

 

[John]

Can a disk be repartitioned which has a master boot area and 2 other
parttitions into 1 global partition?

As others have mentioned Partition Magic among others can do this. But
one caveat, don't do it while you are using the OS, boot from the CD or
the rescue floppies. Never ever try to dynamically change the partition
that your OS is running from.

John

 

[Plato]

I second Kens' excellent advice about backing up-- just do it before any

One shouldn't need advice about backing up your data. That should be a
given. And done normally as regular tasks.