The mention of a dead or damaged laptop hard drive may give you a sense of permanent data loss but it’s not. If you are careful enough and take the right steps quickly, then you can save your precious data even if you don’t have a backup. Are you looking for DIY hard drive data recovery procedures instead of professional services? Then, this guide is for you. Let’s see how you can overcome challenges associated with recover data from dead laptop hard drive.
What Causes Damage to Hard Drives?
Hard drive data recovery techniques require an understanding of why the damage happened in the first place. Here are the top causes of damaged or corrupted laptop hard drives.
Accidental Deletion
Sometimes, missing data from the hard drive can give you the illusion that your laptop’s hard drive is damaged or dead. However, it can be a consequence of hard drive formatting or accidental deletion.
Logical Errors
Are you unable to access the laptop hard drive? Before you attempt a data recovery from a damaged hard drive, assess whether it’s because of logical errors. Examples of logical errors include partition table errors, file system corruption, and accidental formatting.
Physical Damage
Have you dropped your laptop or exposed it to water recently? Then, there’s a chance of malfunctions or mechanical failures because of physical damage.
Hard Drive Data Recovery: DIY Steps
Are you comfortable with data recovery from a damaged hard drive? Then, you might attempt hard drive data recovery on your own by following the steps below.
Get a Hard Drive Enclosure
The first step of how to recover data from a dead hard drive involves bringing the HDD or SSD out of the affected laptop. Once you access it, make sure you put it in a compatible hard disk enclosure. Thus, you can connect the damaged or dead drive to another computer.
In simpler terms, you will be using the dead or affected hard drive as an external one.
Plug the External Hard Drive to Another Computer
After you have successfully retrieved the dead or damaged laptop hard drive, find a computer with the same operating system as the laptop. Before you assess the drive, you must disable the TRIM feature, especially if you try to rescue an SSD.
The enabled TRIM feature reduces the chance of data recovery for broken laptops. Here’s how you can deactivate the TRIM feature on Windows:
- Press Windows + S to look for ‘cmd’.
- Then, right-click on Command Prompt and choose Run as Administrator.
- Copy and paste the following command: fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 1. Then, hit Enter to disable the TRIM command.
After you are done with the hard drive data recovery, turn on the TRIM command. Run the command ‘fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0’ in a Command Prompt window.
Assess the Hard Drive
Before you proceed with how to recover data from a dead hard drive, make sure whether the drive is dead or malfunctioning. Common symptoms of physical damage include:
- Burning smell
- Strange noises like clicking, whirring, or grinding
- No sound from the affected hard drive.
If you come across any of those above-mentioned signs, it’s better to consider professional data recovery services in Dubai. Thus, you can avoid further data loss chances. If your hard drive works well with your computer and the damage isn’t serious, you can follow these steps.
Transfer Content of the Hard Drive to the Computer
This step applies to you if the hard drive can still communicate with your computer. See if your computer’s BIOS successfully recognizes the connected hard drive that is failing. If that works, you don’t even have to use data recovery software for this. Simply transfer all the content of the failing or damaged hard drive to the computer’s storage.
If your computer doesn’t have sufficient storage, consider connecting an additional external drive. Then, you can transfer the files from the failing hard drive to the working external one. Depending on the size of your hard drive’s content, the transfer time may vary. If you have huge files, such as movies and songs, then copy-pasting your content can take hours.
Use Data Recovery Software
Data recovery from a damaged hard drive seems like a tough job when the storage doesn’t interact with your computer. However, don’t lose hope. That’s what data recovery software is designed for. Indeed, data recovery software can retrieve lost or corrupted data no matter what caused the loss, including:
- Damaged file system
- Malware infection
- File corruption
- Accidental deletion
Data recovery software can’t retrieve data from a hard drive that is physically damaged. Hard drive data recovery isn’t possible with such software if the disk has severe logical corruption.
Try Windows File Recovery Tool
If you think your hard drive has logical errors, not physical ones, use a trusted data recovery tool. Check that the data recovery software works with your hard drive before using it. If it’s a Windows device, then you can use the Windows File Recovery Tool.
The Windows File Recovery Tool works only on Windows 10 and Windows 11. Here’s what you need to follow for data recovery for broken laptops’s hard drives:
- Start by downloading the Windows File Recovery Tool through the Microsoft Store.
- After installation, hit the Launch button.
- The tool has 2 modes. The Regular Mode is for recovering data from drives using the NTFS file system. To use Regular Mode, copy and paste this command: winfr source-drive: destination-drive: /regular. Then, hit Enter. Press Y when it prompts.
- Otherwise, you can use the Extensive Mode. For that, you need to type: winfr source-drive: destination-drive: /extensive. Press the Enter key. Press Y to proceed.
- To view the recovered files prompt, press Y.
Use Third-Party Recovery Software
If the Windows File Recovery Tool is a miss, then you can try third-party data recovery software. For example, you can use Disk Drill, which comes with a free trial. Also, it has a good data recovery track record along with an easy-to-use user interface.
So, you can download Disk Drill and click the button of ‘Search for lost data’. Then, you can review the lost items found by the software. Follow the on-screen instructions to recover the required files.
Opt for Professional Data Recovery Services: Best Option
To protect and recover data from dead laptop hard drive, contact a data recovery service. They can access your data safely. This won’t damage your laptop or hard drive. Make sure you don’t use the hard drive or laptop after damage. Otherwise, your data can be rewritten and lost.
