Why can’t I merge the drive partitions on my laptop?

Q I have an Asus Eee PC 900 laptop running Windows XP. It has a solid-state drive (SSD) that has been partitioned into a C drive of 3.73GB and a second partition of 7.49GB, called D drive. My problem is that partition C lacks space, although I have uninstalled all unnecessary programs and directed all my work into partition D.

George Buckham wrote to you reporting a similar problem with his computer and you recommended merging the two partitions using Easeus Partition Master. This seemed to be the perfect solution but, when I tried it, partition C was recognised as being on Disk 1 and partition D on Disk 2 – perhaps because my drive is an SSD. There seemed to be no provision for merging disks. Is there an alternative?
John Taylor

A There are various tools that can change the size of partitions but first we need to consider how the partitions have been set up.

Rather than having a single disk that has been divided into a couple of partitions, your Asus Eee PC 900 does in fact have two SSDs installed. Having an SSD would not prevent the creation, deletion or resizing of partitions.

However, there are actually two physical drives installed in your laptop: one around 4GB in size and the other around 8GB. If these were partitions on the same drive, there would be nothing to stop you from merging them, but this is not possible as you have two completely separate disks.

But all is not lost. If you are running out of space, you could consider upgrading one or both of the disks, or you can add more space through the use of USB memory keys or external hard disks. Your laptop also has an SD card slot and this is another available option.

The same memory cards that are used in many digital cameras and camcorders can be used in the same way as a USB memory key to provide additional storage space but without awkward protrusions.

You might want to consider leaving the C drive for just Windows, keeping drive D for applications, and using removable media to store your personal documents.