Hack 44 Merge Partitions with PartitionMagic

Whether you have two partitions or ten and need to make an adjustment to shrink or grow the size of a specific partition, or you want to move the contents of one partition into another by merging them, PartitionMagic has the power to do the work for you.

In this hack we'll take two of the partitions we had from the previous hack, [Hack #43] and merge them into one larger partition. Starting at the main PartitionMagic window, follow these steps:

Select Merge partitions under Pick a Task... from the main menu at the upper left.
Select the first partition to be merged with another, as shown in Figure 5-14.

Figure 5-14. Selecting the first partition to merge with another

Figure 5-15. Selecting the second partition to merge with another
Select the second partition to be merged, as shown in Figure 5-15.

The contents of the second partition will be moved into a folder on the first or merged partition, so the program needs to know the name of this new folder, as you see in Figure 5-16.

Figure 5-16. Selecting the folder to hold the second partition's data

At this point, you're probably worried that Windows or some program will lose track of the data you're moving; however, PartitionMagic includes a tool called Drive Mapper that looks for and changes references to the old partition and folders to reflect the new drive and folder they moved to.

When you are done with the merge selections, you will return to the main window. Click the Apply button to let the program complete the operation.

In two hacks, the power of third-party partitioning software should be quite obvious and prove to be much easier and less risky that making a lot of backups, using FDISK or XP's Disk Management tools, and moving data yourself.

Hack 44 Merge Partitions with PartitionMagic

Figure 5-14. Selecting the first partition to merge with another

Figure 5-15. Selecting the second partition to merge with another

Figure 5-16. Selecting the folder to hold the second partition's data