Can you recover data from a dead laptop?
If your laptop doesn't start, there may be several reasons: power issues, RAM failures, hard drive errors.
Most of the problems listed (except for a hard drive failure) do not lead to data loss.
To access the data, you need to extract the drive from the laptop and connect it to a PC running Windows.
Don't forget to prepare an USB-to-SATA cable in advance.
As soon as you make sure you can access the data,
you can try to fix the laptop.
Here you can find a good tutorial - www.pcworld.com/laptop-repairs.html
If you realize that the problem is not associated with the laptop but with the drive ,
you can try the following:
- Connect the drive to the PC using an USB-to-SATA cable or directly to a PC motherboard using a SATA cable
(it is a preferable connection type).
- Run Windows Explorer and check if the drive is displayed in there.
If it is displayed but shows an error when you try to open it, don't format it – it will lead to data loss.
To get access to the data stored on the laptop drive you need to use special data recovery software like ReclaiMe.
You can find the detailed tutorial at this page - Laptop hard drive recovery.
- If the drive is not displayed in there, go to Disk Management (to do this click Start and type diskmgmt.msc).
If you can see your drive listed, there is a chance to recover data with ReclaiMe software; otherwise,
the only thing you can do is to send the drive to a data recovery lab for repair.
Still have questions?