How to combine two Windows partitions into one, for free?

[pianowizard]

I have two Windows XP primary partitions on my desktop hard drive, which are 57GB and 54GB respectively, and would like to merge them into one partition. I am aware of some commercial software that can do this, but does anyone know if there is freeware or shareware that can do the same thing?

[icantux]

Hey Pianowizard,

I use a neat application called "System Rescue". It does everything that Partition Magic does but not within a Windows environment. The free program boots into a DOS environment and invokes a Windows-type GUI (using qtparted - a linux app). System Rescue allows you to resize, merge, format partitions quickly and efficiently (DOS, FAT, FAT32, NTFS, Linux...). In my opinion it's even better than Partition Magic, which is known to be quite buggy - and expensive.

You can download System Rescue here: http://www.sysresccd.org/
The file is an ISO image (download the "x86 stable"), which you can burn using any CD recording software. This will create a bootable CD for you. It's simple to use, just boot from the CD and follow the instructions.

Hope this helps

[pianowizard]

Icantux, thanks for the suggestion. I was impatient and instead of waiting for an answer to my question, I went to majorgeeks.com and downloaded the freeware Partition Logic 0.61. It worked! Now I have one single partition on the 120GB drive! But System Rescue sounds cool and the next time I need to manage partitions, I will definitely look into it. Thanks again.