my friends computer has (for some reason) 2 partitions, 1 is an 8 GB partition the other is a 180GB drive, (not sure why it was set up this way...) he is running out of space on drive C and I suggest just merging the partitions, so I took the drive out, hooked it up to mine via a USB to IDE adaptor and and used partition magic. I found out the first partition is FAT32, and the 2nd is NTFS... before I did anything I used ghost to backup both partitions. I then converted the fat32 partition to NTFS.(using partition magic) I then ran the merge partition using partition magic. when I put the drive back in, it booted up everything was fine. until I opened the start menu and went to "all programs". it won't open.... any ideas why this is? or how to fix it? -Nick

The small partition is the Sony partition for restoring the system when there is a problem. You do not want to merge it with the large partition. I suggest that you restore the images to put the machine back the way it was and install a second drive for more space.

Is this computer a Laptop?

Nick, There's a possible fix at the link below. Start Menu 'All Programs' is empty or nothing happens when you click the menu http://windowsxp.mvps.org/AllProgra... Tufenuf

got it fixed! apparently he had all his document and setting son the OTHER partition (which is strange) so he had all the registry keys pointing to that drive, I simply had to change D: to C: and point it to that folder.. thanks for the help -Nick