How to recover files from Hard Drive in case of Hard Drive failure

Losing data is a threat which haunts almost all the computer users of today. The consequences of which cannot be quantified by a single yardstick. It affects different types of users in different ways. Starting from losing your favorite song, to losing a multi-billion dollars’ contract, the list of grievances is just endless.

Let’s discuss some of the reasons why we lose data which is stored on our machines and how to recover the lost data files. Our special focus will be on laptops as they are more vulnerable when compared to the desktop computers.

The causes of data loss on a laptop hard drive

Victor is a movie buff who never fails to watch even a single movie. He once gets a pen drive from his friend which contains a recently released movie. Without running the Antivirus scan, he simply inserts the pen drive in his laptop and plays the movie. After some time, everything on the screen goes blank. The laptop is as good as dead.

Neha on the other hand, is a workaholic. She brings home her official laptop and keeps working even while having her dinner and worse, while brushing her teeth! Suddenly, the glass of water she is holding falls right on to her laptop’s keyboard. Alas! After a while, the system crashes due to water inside.

Sumit is a care-free guy. He loves to work in open air. Hence, he often goes to his terrace and works there on his laptop. Once, he decides to view the road and work simultaneously. Throwing all caution to the wind, he places the laptop on the terrace wall and starts working. A momentary lapse of concentration, and it falls on the road below. The laptop is broken.

All the above mentioned persons lost their machines. More importantly, the precious data. Now the question is, how serious is the damage?

How to recover the lost files from hard drive? Considering today’s technology, it’s not a very big one in most of the cases.  Let us have a look at various ways to recover data from laptop hard drive 

Connecting the laptop hard drive to an external device

In most of the cases of laptop failure, the data is intact in the machine’s hard drive. To restore hard drive, all you need to do is, to find a way to somehow connect the hard drive to another machine which can be another laptop or a desktop.

In other words, it’s like connecting an external hard disk to your computer.

The first step in this direction is to take the hard drive out of the laptop by dissembling it. The hard drive is present at the back of the laptop. Most of the laptop are designed in such a way that the drive can be taken out of it easily.

After taking it, connect it to another machine (laptop/PC). You can use a USB box, a SATA-to-USB adapter, or you can directly use a SATA port for connection. After the connection has been established, open “My computer” in your machine. Check the presence of your laptop drive. If it is found, your data is safe and you can save it. This is one of the important and most used methods to recover data from laptop hard drive.

Using data recovery software

There are umpteen number of software applications available in the market which can help you recover your data from a non functional laptop. One such software for example is ReclaiMe file recovery software. All you have to do is, just download the software, install it on your machine and launch it.

After selecting the desired laptop drive click “start’ button. Make sure the data is of good quality by previewing the recovered files and save it wherever you want. Sometimes you might not see your laptop drive in Disk Management (Say Hard drive failure). The reason most probably might be a mechanical damage.

In such cases, you can connect your drive to a computer to recover files. Most of the professional firms use applications like ReclaiMe Software for recovering your data. On the flip side, giving your hard drive to the professional for data recovery can be a costly proposition. Hence if you have the knowhows of technology, it is advisable to do it yourself.

Recovering data using a Bootable disc

Another effective method to recover data from laptop hard drive is to use a bootable disc. Load a bootable installation of Windows or Linux on a pen drive or CD.

If your choice is windows, you would require a few more applications like BartPE for only Windows XP, nLite for Windows XP or vLite for Windows Vista. After creating a bootable CD, you can boot using it.

This might come handy in creating disk image file and also recovering files from laptop resources. If your system does not boot, you can always remember the first method to recover files from hard drive.

Exclusively for Mac users

For hard disk data recovery in Mac, all you require is a firewire cable, a working Mac computer and the nonworking Mac computer from which you want to recover data. Make sure the computer is switched off and connect both the Mac computers using firewire cable. Start the working computer and press the T key so that it runs on Target mode.

Keep the key pressed until you see the firewire icon. Now you will be able to find and locate the data in the dead computer. Copy whatever data you want and put it the place of your preference on the working computer. Laptop recovery in this case is a very easy task.

Before we wind up

There is no second opinion in the fact that data recovery has become lot more easier than what it was a decade ago. However there is one method which is the best in data recovery, this article did not talk about.

Guess what? It is better to prevent and prepare than to repent and repair. So always keep a backup for all your data. For, you never know when Mr. Crash may strike your system.