Enlarge a partition without losing data with Windows 7 diskmgmt?

I have a 320GB hard drive currently partitioned as below:

A long time ago, a computer expert formatted my hard drive like this because I wanted to install Ubuntu. I'm now ready to do this, but I'll never need so much free space (103.09GB). I want to enlarge the D:\ volume because it already has lots of data on it.

I know that when I open diskmgmt.msc, I could possibly enlarge the D:\ volume using some free space from the unformatted 103.09GB volume, because the program offers me the option to enlarge. However I'm afraid that I might lose data doing this.

Is it possible to enlarge the partition with this Windows 7 tool or am I better using GParted via "Try Ubuntu" on my Live CD? Would either of them cause data loss in this scenario?

Both GParted and Windows 7 diskmgmt are able to shrink and extend NTFS partitions without data loss. The risk is always there, but very small – in particular, extending is a very simple operation, compared to shrinking or moving.

I've used GParted for this myself several times and it worked perfectly. As for diskmgmt – it's part of Windows, so it surely should know how to deal with its own filesystem.

Repartitioning always introduces a risk of data loss or corruption during operations, but from my experience it's pretty rare. To be sure, make a backup first; and then use either method (personally I'd use GPartEd).

Since it's not your system partition, you can use whatever tool you want. Both GParted and diskmgmt.msc are reliable tools.

The important thing is that your drive is not converted to "Dynamic", not all partitioning tools can (could?) handle them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_Disk_Manager#Basic_volumes_and_dynamic_volumes

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa363785%28v=vs.85%29.aspx