Let’s imagine a scenario where you come down from a peaceful night’s sleep, make a cup of coffee, and head into your home office to get some work done. You punch your computer’s boot button, and…nothing happens. A terrifying prospect. Since we all rely on our computers to bring home the bacon (or beyond meat substitute of your choice), we wanted to go over some tips for data recovery in a pinch.
What’s the Source of the Problem?
The first concern is whether your hard drive is okay or not. Sad to say, if the computer won’t boot because the hard drive is corrupted, you might be out of luck. Our condolences. However, plenty of dead computers actually have an electrical problem, a failing power supply, a corrupted boot sector, or several other problems. In this case, your data is safe, just hard to access since you can’t turn on your darned computer.
There are some techniques for recovering your data that involve a bit of software expertise (plus a computer that actually powers on, which not all dying machines will do), but since we’re a hardware company we’ll focus on the hardware method. Don’t forget you’ll need a good external hard drive to which you can copy your files once you can access the hard drive and see if it’s still working.
The Process
Find yourself a screwdriver and a way of connecting the retrieved hard drive to another device. This connector may be a SATA to USB cable (check your computer’s specs, first, as you may need a different cable depending on the model), a docking station, or a hard drive enclosure – basically something that will allow the extracted hard drive to talk to another computer via USB. Please be aware that getting the right connector is quite important, so you’ll definitely need to do a bit of research on your device before you start the process, so that you can order the correct connector.
Once you have that connector in hand, though, it’s time to wield your screwdriver like a pro (at least, if you have a laptop it is. Desktops often slide apart for even easier access). We recommend googling the disassembly process for your model, as plenty of computers have disassembly instructions posted online. Once your laptop or tower is open, you can locate the hard drive and slide it out of its cage. (If it’s soldered in place, you’re again out of luck, but that’s where ComputerCare can help you out, so don’t despair.)
Connect your extracted hard drive to your second devices and see if you can find the drive folders in Finder/Explorer. If you can get in, congratulations! You just retrieved your data all by yourself.
Sound Intimidating?
We totally get it. Computer repair is not everyone’s cup of tea…but it is ours, so you’re in luck. If you don’t want to deal with these tricky issues of finding the right cable and then working through the whole problem just to meet with failure, open a service ticket with us. We are computer repair experts and can diagnose your computer and get it up and running in no time.
