Knoppix VS Parted Magic

IDK if this is too esoteric but Knoppix is a version of Linux you can boot off a CD and it's very capable and device smart. Download image, burn to disk, boot laptop from CD (or USB drive). It'll let you access your Windows folders and will detect external USB drives, network drives etc. I've used it to safely recover music and pictures from an infected machine, then you can just nuke the thing and reinstall... Source: over 2 years ago

You could, for example, boot your computer to an operating system which resides on a USB stick, and then examine the health of your existing drive.... Booting to something like Parted Magic, since it has most of the tools you'd need for "fixing" hard drives, already included with the OS. All that would take, is a USB stick, and a computer to download and mount the image on the stick (with a program like YUMI). Source: 11 months ago

But, ranting aside, you can use either * GParted Live, or * PartedMagic To boot into a linux OS and modify the drive's partitions. Specifically you'll want to move the “D:” disk partition to make the unallocated space next to the disk partition you want to extend. Source: 11 months ago

Purchase a copy of Parted Magic. https://partedmagic.com/. I buy one every few years. Supports the maintainer. Great set of tools. Source: 11 months ago

Purchase a copy of parted magic. Great utility Linux distro. I buy a new version every few years. https://partedmagic.com/. Source: 11 months ago

For future reference, running something like Active KillDisk or Parted Magic against the drive multiple passes should be more than sufficient to prevent most all recovery unless you're dealing with a government entity. Source: 12 months ago