How to recover files from a laptop hard drive with a crashed operating system?

Question

I have an old laptop that is just sitting around which had a windows vista operating system loaded up on it, but recently it has crashed and I am not able to access it. I have looked into different computer repair stores but I would rather do the job myself. There are files on the hard drive (pictures,programs,word documents,music,etc) which I would like to recover to an external media source such as a thumb drive or dvd. Would I need to take the hard drive out of the old laptop, purchase a SATA enclosure and load it through usb to another computer or is there an easier method. However if I do decide to take the repair route, would the Bestbuy geeksquad or staples easytech be better fit for the job. Thanks any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

The easiest way is to using data recovery software. Tenorshare Data Recovey WinPE can boot up your crashed computer with USB or CD and recover data from the crashed hard drive.

Answer 2

Yes, I would do what you listed above regarding the sata enclosure. I would start from scratch after you have taken your documents off, reinstalling the operating system will properly be better in the long run. I find all these major shops such as bestbuy to be overpriced. I would have a go my self and then ask best buy if you get stuck. You get to learn and then use this experience in the future

Answer 3

The easiest way is the one you outlined yourself... "... I need to take the hard drive out of the old laptop, purchase a SATA enclosure and load it through usb to another computer..."



The drive is easily removed - Most laptops will have either a sliding switch or 1-2 screws holding the drive in. Sliding the switch or removing these screw/s will enable the drive to be pulled from the machine.☺

Answer 4

You can download "001 file recovery" to recover files from a crashed laptop hard drive. Since the computer is not able to start up, you may need to take out hard drive and then connect it to another computer as an external hard drive.

Answer 5

In addition to buying a SATA enclosure there are other options.



You can simply put the HD in another computer as a second drive and use that computers OS to read the drive. No cost. No enclosure.



The next way is to use an adapter- SATA/PATA to USB. The advantages: it's cheaper than an enclosure and it works for 2.5" and 3.5" drives either SATA or PATA. You do not have to open the 2nd computer because it is a USB adapter.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=sata/ide+to+usb+adapter&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-beta&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=9485045192101622072&sa=X&ei=cA3WT4jDL8GP6gGW-NH3Ag&ved=0CLUBEPMCMAA



Good luck.

Answer 6

I would definitely try the external enclosure route before I went to the box store guys who will charge you out the you-know-what. Good sites for enclosures are newegg and buy.com etc. There are some enclosure boxes that handle both SATA and the older ATA drives.

Answer 7

If you think you can use linux. You could boot laptop from a live CD (no need to install) and copy files to usb or external drive.



Puppy linux is really easy to use http://puppylinux.org



Recover files from Windows hard disk using Puppy Linux http://help.artaro.eu/index.php/data-recovery/recover-files-from-hard-disk.html



Then try re-installing windows without removing the hard drive.

Answer 8

You will need to use something like this data recovery program.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8R99NVoNfo



I've had to use it many times in the past but in this case you need to plug that drive into another system as an external drive or slave drive and run the software from there. It will rebuild the drive and hopefully recover the files.

Answer 9

If you can not get access to the hard drive, please boot up your PC with bootable CD or USB. Tenorshare Data Recovery for WinPE allows you to create a bootable CD or USB to reboot crashed operating system and recover files from the dead hard drive.

Answer 10

To recover data from hard drive with crashed operating system, you should

use a smart tool like Remo Recover. It is very efficient to restore all

data successfully in such circumstances. You can employ this tool in

different circumstances of operating system crash for better outcome.

Answer 11

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