Sorting where Rows have merged cells

[markshnier]

I have a sheet which has data in repeating blocks of 5 rows identically formatted. The first column is a merged cell cells A1:A5, and then below that is a merged cell of A6:A10 etc down the page. i woould like to sort on that first column with the merged cells and have it drag along whole blocks of 5 rows in the sort process. Of course when I try to do that it comes up with a message saying

"This operation requires merged cells to be identically sized"

I was using an older version of Excel, but I do have access to Excel 2010 if there is a solution there.

Thx
Mark