Raw Data,
I would suggest from your description that you are putting all your problems in one basket, together with the bad eggs and the rotten apples!
Why don't you just have two hard drives. Drive'C' would be your OS drive and your next drive would have all that you want - AND - you can partition if you really must. In my experience, and those of mates and advisors, all say partitions are a pain. They are difficult to manage and become a problem when they fill - one or two of yours are already in that league and such small partitions will bounce more often than you would like.
If you need 40gb so badly get another 40gb disc. You can start over by putting XP on there and then transfer whatever data you want from your present drive and then format it. I have three hard drives and with the freedom to do whatever I want is amazing - and I have NTFS too. What's more, HDD are so cheap now. A 120gb will only cost you around £60.
Those partitions WILL cause you a problem I promise - as they already have.