How to Resize External Hard Drive Partitions?

Q: I bought an IOGear 160G external drive. I partitioned this external hard drive into 6 partitions, of 20-32G sizes. This is completely wrong for how I want to use the drive. All my mp3 programs require the library to be all in one volume, so I need 60-80G all in one volume just for music. IOGear support says that Windows XP does not allow volumes any larger than 60G in FAT32. (This seems crazy since my older drive is all one volume and is FAT32.) Does anyone know how I can resize these partitions into one larger one (say 80-90 G) and have it in a format that both my Win98SE system and my Windows XP laptop can access?

A: To resize external hard drive partitions, you cannot use Disk Management Tool in Windows XP to create an external hard drive partition that larger than 32 GB. The only choice to get a FAT32 partition on the external hard drive, you need to use third-party external hard drive resizing software, like EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition.

EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition is a FREE disk partitioning utility that offers a range of powerful functions like Resize and Move, Copy, Create, Merge, and Convert external hard drive partitions, etc. From the following steps, you may find it is a simple task to resize external hard drive partitions with EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition.

The following is the step-by-step instruction to extend system partition (C: drive).

1. Launch EaseUS Partition Master.

If there is no unallocated space behind the system partition, please follow the below steps. If there is unallocated space behind the system partition, please directly go to step 4.

2. Select one partition, right click it, select "Resize/Move partition" and drag the partition handle leftwards to resize the drive. Then there will be unallocated space.

3. Move the drive rightwards to let the unallocated space be behind the system partition (C: drive) and click OK.

4. Select the system partition (C: drive), right click it and select "Resize/Move partition", drag the partition handle rightwards to extend system partition (C: drive).

5. Click Apply.

For more detailed information, please visit resizing and moving partitions.

From above, you will find that resizing the partition on the external hard drive is very simple, Besides resizing & moving partitions, it also has other powerful range of functions, such as: Create partition, Delete partition, Copy disk, Format partition, Hide and Unhide partition, Merge partitions.