How to recover data from a laptop hard drive

Laptop data recovery is complicated by the fact that there is only one hard drive in the laptop. Therefore, it is not easy to add the secondary storage required for the recovery operations to the laptop.

Laptop data recovery boils down to one of the following:

• Getting out the hard drive then hooking it to the desktop PC and using ReclaiMe data recovery software to retrieve data.
• Using a bootable CD together with ReclaiMe data recovery software.

If the hard drive produces some unusual noise, it may be physically damaged. Consider creating a disk image file before the recovery.

Disassemble the laptop and attach its hard drive to the desktop PC

This is the recommended approach to laptop data recovery.

Getting the hard drive out of the laptop typically requires just a couple of screws removed, because most laptops are designed to have hard drives replaced easily.

• Make sure to remove both the outlet power plug and the battery when working with the laptop. The laptop may power up while partially disassembled if you forget to remove the battery.
• Search YouTube for video instructions for your particular laptop. Search for "hard drive replacement Vaio" or something like that.

Once you get the hard drive out, attach it to the desktop PC either directly or using an USB box. You may need the appropriate converter if you are connecting the 2.5" laptop IDE drive to the 3.5" desktop IDE mainboard. USB enclosures are readily available in electronics stores for either SATA or IDE 2.5" laptop drives.

Once you successfully hook the hard drive to the desktop, refer to how to unformat a hard drive for further guidance.

If you do not want to disassemble the laptop

In this case you need a bootable CD or an USB flash drive. Put either a bootable Windows installation on it, or a bootable Linux (this is called "Live CD"). For Windows, you will need your Windows CD and one of the following tools:

• BartPE (Windows XP only),
• nLite (for Windows XP) or vLite (for Windows Vista).

Boot from the CD and create a disk image file

The following instructions are not quite specific because bootable CDs come in many flavours. The exact process would be different between e.g. Windows and Linux CDs.

1. Create a bootable CD of your choice.
2. Boot from this CD. Connect a secondary storage where the disk image file will be placed. This may be either an USB hard drive, or a network shared folder.
3. Use whatever software available to create a disk image file.

Once the disk image file has been created, use it to perform a data recovery (How to use a disk image file?).

Boot from a CD and recover data using ReclaiMe

1. Use nLite (for Windows XP) or vLite (for Vista) to create a Windows bootable CD. You will need your Windows installation CD to create a boot disc. Make sure you include .NET framework onto it when configuring nLite or vLite.
2. Boot from this CD. Connect a secondary storage where the recovered data will be placed.
3. Launch ReclaiMe (either from the secondary storage or from an USB stick) and perform the recovery as described in how to unformat a hard drive.