relocating files on large HD

I have an external hard drive that has backup files from 3 partitions on my mail drives. I have defragged them but they are sitting in the middle of the drive. How can I move them to another location at either end of the Hard drive so I can partition the drive for another purpose - possibly Linux?

 

The easy way = Move them off the drive to a local HD, repartition it (the external), install Linux or whatever, then move them back.

 

There are various solutions to repartition on the fly but all advise to backup your data so I'd agree with surferdude, back it up then look at your options...

A reasonble place to start is here