Here we will Recover Data from Laptop Hard Drive That Won’t Boot . You might have got into the situation when you connect the hard drive of your dead laptop to another working computer, but it fails to boot or show up in My Computer. When that happens, you are likely out of luck.
It is not easy to recover data from a laptop hard drive without booting it up, especially if the file system on it has been severely corrupted due to a virus attack or improper shutdown.
Do you have a laptop hard drive that won’t boot? Perhaps the drive shows up in BIOS, but when you restart your computer, Windows fails to load. When this happens, your files are inaccessible and most likely irretrievable without strong data recovery software.
Why Hard Drive Failed To Work On laptops?
Hard drives fail for many reasons. Some of these include power outages, system malfunctions, or component failure; however, it is often physical damage that causes hard disk problems which makes data recovery extremely difficult. Laptop error messages like “Primary Master Hard Disk Fail,” “Operating System Not Found” or “Drive Not Recognized by Windows” usually indicate that there’s no chance of getting access to your personal data without employing specialized tools designed for accessing physically damaged storage devices.
You can try all kinds of data recovery software on the market, but only a few will work for this specific case because they need at least some functions in Disk Management (e.g., by creating and deleting partitions) or Windows Explorer (e.g., by copying files with right-click). The free partition manager Mini Tool Partition Wizard has been tested on some laptop hard drives that had lost MBR or Boot Record. The result was promising: it can not only rebuild the boot sector but also find and recover deleted files from raw partition.
Here are the steps to recover data from your dead laptop hard drive without booting. Please note that We Tested These methods have been successfully applied with Windows 10 Professional, but might not work with other editions of Windows due to different log-in procedures. That being said, just go ahead and give it a try if you have no alternative left.
How To Recover Data From Laptop Hard Drive that Won’t Boot:
In This Method, We are going To Use Mini Tool Partition Wizard, which will Give us the flexibility to Recover Data From Hard drives. The Best thing about This software is That it’s easy to use. And you can get the solution in just a few clicks. Let’s Go To The steps that require Recover Data From Laptop Hard Drive that won’t Boot.
Recover DATA From Hard Drive With Mini tool
- Run Mini Tool Partition Wizard after installation. (You can Download by clicking Here)
- Open Mini Tool Partition Wizard on another computer where you don’t need any data recovery. Then connect your dead hard drive to that computer via USB or SATA cable.
- Find the target hard drive if it’s not shown up.
- Switch to “Advanced” -> “Find Non-RAID…” and choose your laptop hard drive from the list. After updating, it should show up in the main window where you can see its information, including Drive Letter, Partition Type, File System Type, Capacity(NTFS), etc.
- Recover data from laptop hard drive without booting
- From the left pane tree menu, select a partition of your dead hard drive that contains important files then click “Copy” to copy all selected partitions into an external device like flash disk or another internal hard disk.
Rebuild master boot record (MBR)
After you finish copying all partitions to another disk, now switch to “Operations” -> “MBR Operations” and choose a working hard drive disk. Then click “Apply”. Next, it will prompt a warning that the selected disk is not the boot disk, hit OK this time.
It should start rebuilding the master boot record of that hard drive then reboot your computer with that hard drive connected to see if Windows starts normally or not. If it boots properly, don’t forget to backup important files from the partition on the dead laptop before applying the above steps again because you cannot guarantee whether this method can work after another shutdown or failed recovery attempt due to bad sectors.
Scan & recover data from laptop hard drive without booting
If it still doesn’t boot, don’t rush to format the hard drive because it means your Windows is not corrupted. So switch to “Home” -> “Recover Partition/Drive” and select the laptop hard drive where you have copied all partitions from the dead hard drive. Then choose an advanced scanning option.
Finally, hit Scan to see if it finds any lost partitions or data on that partition. If yes, right-click on found files then select a recovery mode (e.g., “Data Recovery”) to recover them in minutes. That’s it! I hope this tutorial will help you get back your important data soon without hassle.
Data Recovery from Damaged System Area:
If you see one of the following error messages when you turn on your laptop, there is a good chance that the system area is corrupted:
- Operating System Not Found.
- Invalid partition table
- Invalid boot diskette
- Primary Master Hard Disk Fail.
The above errors are different – some will cause the hard drive not to be recognized by BIOS whereas others may make Windows fail during startup. For this reason, it’s often impossible to get access to your lost data without special programs designed to work with physically damaged drives. You can use recovery software such as the ones discussed here to get your data back:
- How to Recover Data from a Corrupted HARD DRIVE and Rebuild Boot Sectors
- How to Repair Laptop HDD Without Affecting the Lost Data
Recover Files with Kernel for FAT/NTFS
Kernel for FAT/NTFS is an easy-to-use program that recovers files from corrupted, damaged, or inaccessible partitions. The program scans disks and creates a list of found files. You can then select the items you wish to recover and save them on any accessible drive. (You can download Kernal Recovery Software by Clicking Here)
The program works with all types of media that can contain Windows volumes including internal or external hard drives, memory cards, USB flash drives, and floppy disks.
Download and install Kernel for FAT/NTFS to a healthy computer. Launch the program and select “Recover Drives” from the left panel to rescan your system for all hard drives attached to it. Alternatively, you can choose to scan a specific drive by selecting it from the list on the top of the window under “Available Physical Drives.”
Click “Next,” then select the file types you want to recover (such as photos, documents, videos, etc.) by clicking them in the right panel under “Available File Types.” The more file types selected, the larger will be the number of recovered files. You can also choose to recover files larger than a certain size, files created or modified within a specific time frame, and even include subfolders in the scanning process.
Click “Next” again and select the destination for recovered files by clicking on one of the drives listed under “Available Physical Drives.” You can choose any drive that’s not included in the list of scanned partitions. Once you are done, click “Start” to begin searching for lost data.
The scanning process may take anywhere from several minutes to hours depending on the type of media you are using, file sizes, and the number of selected items. Kernel for FAT/NTFS will list all found files once the recovery is complete. You can preview their contents before saving them on the destination drive.
Final Words:
Hope You Get the possible ways to recover Data From The Hard Drive that don’t work. We try our best to share with you the full Steps that will help you to solve the problem. There are many ways you can recover data from a hard drive that doesn’t work. We hope this article has given you some ideas of what to do when your computer crashes and the best way for you to get back on track with your day-to-day tasks.
I Am Robert Karsyn (Graduate in computer science). I found LaptopsRai to Share my Experience Online World Wide. I have a Greater 8 Year Working Experience in the Computer Field and Love to troubleshooting Computer issues. In This blog, I Share My Experience and Provides You Best laptop Buying Guide۔