How to combine partitions in windows?

Question

I recently installed Windows XP Home SP2 on my computer. This is not an upgrade, it is a fresh install. It is on one 40gb hard drive.

Problem: There are now three partitions; one is the FAT file system partition (24MB), the second is the C drive NTFS system (4.9GB) and the third is unallocated (32GB).

There is no partition designated for recovery as I have a recovery disk and I do not want a partition designated for recovery files.

Question: How do I combine the C partition wih the unallocated partition????

Will it work if I format the unallocated as "E" and then erase the partition?

Answer 1

You won't be able to merge them unless you have some other software but even then, one of your partitions is NTFS and the other is FAT and I assume you want just 1 partition and 1 install of Windows XP SP2. If this is the case, to delete any unwanted partitions, right click on My Computer (typically on desktop in classic mode or in the Start menu if using XP mode) and choose manage. This will open the Computer Management window, in the left pane, select Disk Management. Once selected, you will be able to see your partitions and some minor settings can be changed here. What you might want to consider is getting is Partition Magic by Norton, that is if you want to spend money on it. I however wouldn't spend the money on it and look for some kind of freeware with similar functions but I don't know of any to suggest, nor have I ever used any. In the Disk Management section, you can explore the partition that you no longer want to use and copy any files you need over to the other one (or flash drive) and simply delete it if you don't want it anymore. With the Partition Magic by Norton, you can take the unallocated partition and move it over to the partition you want, therefore, you are able to move disk space from one partition to the other. Hopefully that answers your question.