I encountered the same problem. Vista Disk management let me shrink my
left most partition (Lwwhich created free nonallocated space between
my leftmost partition and my rightmost partition (R. when truing to
exppand my rightmost partition (R into the free space on its left,
Vista insisted to convert my disk to a dynamic disk, would not work
otherwise. This was the case both when R: was a primary partition and
when R: was a logical partition within an extended partition. Converting
the disk to a dynamic disk is not a good idea if it contains the
operative system why I had to abort the operation. Seems Vista will
expand without convertion to a dynamic disk only if the free space is to
the right of the expended partition. Naughty Vista.


--
AdamBerko