How can I combine blocks of unallocated space to make a new, larger partition?

Question

I'm trying to create a new partition on my Vista laptop. Unfortunately, Lenovo put on a fairly large partition after my main C: I want to free up space from both the C: and Q: drives (see the image below) and somehow combine them to have a 23Gb partition, rather than limiting myself to a 15Gb one.

Is there a way to combine the unallocated chunks into one larger partition? If I have to I can nuke the Q: partition but I would prefer not to.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I would personally avoid PartitionMagic. I feel it has gone downhill since Norton acquired it oh so many years ago. My preference these days is Acronis Disk Director [1].

This basic process should work;

Shrink C drive by the extra free space you need. Move the Lenovo partition to the front or back of the free space. Make partition in new contiguous free space. '

I know this can be done with Disk Director.

[1] http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/

Answer 2

Partition Magic, though you have to pay for it, sounds like it would be the ideal tool for this situation. I have never tried your specific situation, so I do not know if it will work as you want it, but it has worked with merging partitions that are next to each other before.

Also, if your laptop is under warranty, be careful about making partition changes. Lenovo may not like it if they need to make a repair. You also want to make sure the other partitions do not serve any other purpose. Nuking them could wreak havoc on one of your Lenovo installed utils.

Answer 3

If you don't want to pay for Partition Magic, I'd recommend GParted. They also have a liveCD available.

I've used it successfully several times on both Linux & Windows boxes... I'd highly recommend defragging your hard drive before shuffling partitions around though.

Answer 4

Not worth it, the partition has only 15 megabytes, not gigabytes. It has very exaggerated size on your screenshot.