Is it possible to combine two disk partitions on Windows?

Question

I'm running Windows XP and I have two disk partitions, C and D. C contains Windows and installed programs, and D has my own files, documents, etc.

I'm wondering if its possible to combine C and D into one partition?

Answer 1

You can combine the partitions into one. However, if you combine them, you will lose the contents of the D: drive. If you can backup the contents of D:, then you can use a program like the Gnome Partition Editor to remove the D: partition and then resize the C: partition to add the free space that is left.

Answer 2

Another option would be to mount the D drive as a folder.

A partition can be mounted as an empty NTFS folder either by adding a new hard disk to your computer or if your existing disk has an unused partition available, and following the steps below:

1. Click on Start » Run and type diskmgmt.msc (opens Disk Administrator)
2. Right click on the new partition and select New Partition
3. Follow the instructions until you reach Assign Drive Letter or Path section
4. Select Mount in the following empty NTFS folder radio button and select Browse
5. Highlight the C: drive and click on New Folder and name the new folder
6. Complete the wizard

Read the full instructions or this Microsoft KB article

Answer 3

It is very much possible to merge adjacent partitions on the same physical drive and using the same file system (FAT32, NTFS etc.) without any data loss (although of course you should always have an up-to-date backup before messing with partitions). GParted can't do it (although people have been requesting the feature for years now), but other programs can.

Partition Magic 8.x from Symantec could do it easily (although they killed a great product after buying it, the final version was fully compatible with XP). The source partition ended up as a folder inside the destination partition.

Now I recommend EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition which is free and can accomplish the same thing: