I'm using a COMPAQ DeskPro, where the diagnostics and setup reside on a partition at the beginning of the disk. However, I used a disk from another computer, where the setup partition wasn't necessary. I have a 1 GB DOS partition at the beginning of the drive. What I would like to do is take off about 20 MB, from the beginning, not the end. What I've heard can be done is to simply put the files residing there at the end of the drive and move the FAT to the partition beginning. I know of no programs that can do this, though. Partition Resizer says it can resize partitions, just not in the manner I described above. I've also had a lot of trouble with it; it completely messed up my extended partition table on a simple moving operation. I'll most likely kill anyone who mentions Partition Magic. I COULD do it manually by copying everything to another partition, repartitioning, and copying it back, but I'm limited in space in other drives that I could back everything up to.
Ideas, anyone?

Here ya go. I am posting this with considerable reluctance, however, as any performance benefits on a 1GB LBA hard drive are trivial and you do risk wrecking the drive. The moving FAT to the outside of the platter made sense back in the Stone Age when capacities were small and platters were large. It really made a world of difference on 5 MB 8" platters. We used the method on 5" platters and even, on certain machines, 3" platters up until 504+ MB LBA drives became available. Back up all data on the drive as there is no way of moving FAT at the cylinder level without destroying all data on the drive. So, use AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I'm not sure I was perfectly clear... I'm not sure if you were either. Thanks for the util anyway... I'll look into it. When I've crashed 10 hard drives, burned 2 floppy drives, and fried 2 processors, a hard drive partition won't matter much...

Maybe I can make myself somewhat clearer.
Partition Resizer, in order to resize a partition from the beginning, completely moves all data forward, including the FAT, then it modifies the FAT and partition table and all that so everything works [or so claimed........]. This takes FOREVER on my computer though, and Partition Resizer's (lack of) reliability tends to scare me. However, in the docs, it said that you could resize a partition from the beginning (non-destructively) by moving all data there to the end of the used area of the partition, then moving the FAT to the beginning of data and modifying it to fit that. Then it said that it was too lazy to do this.

I can attempt to illustrate something here.
Your FAT partition now, where FAT represents the FAT and the letters represent any random data, and - free space:
FAT a b c d e f g h i j k - - - - - -
Partition Resizer just something like this, in a giant moving operating.
FAT a b c d e f g h i j k - - -
What I'm looking for is a utility that can do something like this, in a faster operation.
FAT d e f g h i j k A B C - - -

Do you follow me? Am I trying too hard?

Yes, I follow you. However, you have to edit the disk if you don't want to wait for Partition Resizer, Ranish Partion Manager or Partition Magic to do it for you and that can only be done destructively. Your only other alternative is to write your own much faster program. The program I linked you to is a disk editor and it was primarily used for the purpose I described.