I have an empty partition that I want to merge with another, thus making one big partition. The other partition has my operating system on it (WinXP Pro). Can I just use fDisk to delete the empty one and resize the remaining (part full) one?

Thankyou

Welcome to TechSpot

You need a program like Partition Magic to do that. Fdisk can only create/delete partitions, whereas PM can also merge and resize.
If those 2 partitions are adjacent, then PM can merge them, provided they are the same file-system (e.g. both NTFS).
Otherwise, PM can/will delete the empty partition and resize the exixting XP-partition to include the free space.

However, you would be better off to keep that partition to store your data from other programs. Move folders such as My Documents to that partition. If XP goes belly-up, at least your data is safe.

Cheers for that realBlackStuff. That guiness really does give you strength then!

Having read up on this partitioning business I've decided I will keep the OP system on one partition and another partition for fun stuff and yet another for experimental data. However I still don't need the Win XP partition to be 30GB. So I'll be using your advice to resize and add an extra partition.

(I raise my pint) Slainte realBlackStuff

Just in case, remember to back up your data before you resize your partitions. You never know when an error can occur, and then all your data is trashed. That problem happened to me before, but I backed up my data so it wasn't that bad.