How to Recover Data from Broken Laptop or Computer Easily?
You must have faced a situation in which your computer system has stopped working or refuses to restart. Here, you must be in a terrible state of losing your sensitive data. Moreover, it could happen with any kind of device, be it a laptop (physical or water-damaged), PC, or computer. Fortunately, there is a way to recover data from broken laptop system.
In this write-up, we will discuss the right solutions to answer the problem of how to restore files from broken laptop, including physically damaged and crashed systems.
Understanding the Problem: Why Laptops Break Down
While thinking about how to recover your data, it helps to know why computers fail before we dive deeper into this. Common causes include:
- Physical malfunction: A cracked hard disk, a broken motherboard, or a damaged power supply.
- Physical damage: Dropped, knocked, or crushed parts.
- Water Damage: Liquid spills or even submersion.
- General Disk Failure: Software or boot errors preventing access
In terms of the hard drive data, it can be intact and recoverable, depending on the reason behind the crash.
Methods to Recover Data from Broken Computer
#1. Remove the Hard Drive and Connect It to Another Computer
One of the most straightforward solutions to recover data from broken PC is to extract the internal storage from your device and connect it to another working system. In a similar case scenario, you can check the reference on how to recover files from external hard drive not detected.
Steps:
- If your broken Laptop is already powered ON, power it off. Then, remove it from every supply of power.
- For desktops, carefully open the case, and for laptops, open the back panel.
- Next, you have to find the HDD or SSD. It typically takes the form of a box connected via cables.
- Take it out carefully if SATA or NVMe drive.
- Finally, take the drive and plug it into a different functional computer using a USB-to-SATA adapter/enclosure.
- Once connected, the drive itself will appear as an external disk.
- Backup important data files from your existing system to the new system or an external backup drive.
This process is useful if there is damage done to the motherboard or the screen, but not to the hard drive itself.
#2. Use Safe Mode or Recovery Drive
If your PC powers up, but does not boot normally, you can try to take out your data from broken laptop using Windows recovery tools. Here are the steps:
- To use the Windows recovery tool, restart the computer and press F8, F11, or Shift + F8 repeatedly while starting up.
- Henceforth, go into Safe Mode or to the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)
- Navigate to the command prompt or system restore choice
- Use the Command Prompt to copy files to an external drive with the xcopy command
- On the other side, you could use the recovery mode File Explorer to manually transfer the data.
This method can be used in situations where your system still sees the internal storage, making data recovery possible without having to remove the drive.
#3. Recover Data from Broken Laptop or Water-Damaged Device
Water damage is one of the most difficult situations. Before learning how to get data off a water-damaged laptop, you should take the following precautions:
Here are the steps you could consider:
- Turn off the laptop. Then, unplug the charger and the battery.
- Do not turn it back on because doing this may damage internal components.
- Use an absorbent material to make sure the laptop gets dried, and then leave the laptop in a cool and dry place for 48-72 hours.
- When it is fully dry, try to get that hard drive out.
- However, if you have a SATA-to-USB adapter, you can connect the drive to another computer.
- If it does not show up, do not try more times — it may worsen the damage.
And when you are unable to see your data, recover your data in seconds with the tool given below.
#4. Retrieve Data from the Hard Drive (Removed from Broken Computer)
You can easily recover data from a broken computer using safe and secure SysTools Hard Drive Data Recovery Software. This application is capable enough to recover files from a broken, damaged PC. So, if you are a novice user and want to recover data from a damaged laptop screen, you can utilize this tool without thinking twice. This facilitates an understandable interface. Thus, to retrieve data from water damaged pc is not that tough either. Here, follow the steps for the same. All the following steps are stated efficiently.
- Firstly, download and launch the software on your machine. After that, attach the hard disk (which was removed from the broken computer) using a USB cable externally.
- Now, the application will display two options. The first one is a scan, and the second one is a formatted scan. Here, you have to select the Scan option. It will help you to recover your data from damaged computer.

- After that, you can see the scanning progress report on your screen. Here, you have to wait a few minutes until it is complete to 100%.

- Then, you can view the data files and folders in the left panel after completion of the scanning procedure.
- In the displayed screen, you can see that the recovery software displays some folders in bold black font. Those folders that are shown in bold consist of the data in them. Besides that, all those folders that are normally listed are blanked from inside. Now, you need to click on that folder from which you have to recover your lost data.

- Subsequently, after selecting the desired folder, the recovery application will show the complete data in the right panel. It also provides item count.

- Now, you have to select those files or folders you need to recover. Simply, click on Save to begin saving the specified deleted files.

- Then, select the desired location from the Browse for folder window. Afterward, click on OK to start the Export process.

- After completion of the recovery process, a dialog box appears on your screen that says Export process completed successfully. Here, you have to simply click on OK to proceed.

Note: – Now you have your files and folders in the healthy state. Here the process complete to recover files from the damaged laptop. Go to the location where you saved your files after recovery and view.
Suggestions to Avoid More Data Loss in the Future
Once you successfully recover data from broken computer, here is how to keep it from happening again:
- Back up periodically using external disks or cloud space.
- Use surge protectors to make sure that the devices are not damaged from heat or power issues.
- Keep liquids away from your laptop or PC.
- Use the available diagnostic tools for monitoring hard drive health.
Final Thoughts
Just because you lost access to your laptop doesn’t mean your data is gone. You can use the right approach to recover data from broken computer using the above manual solution or an advanced solution for reliable data recovery, even from severely damaged systems.