How to Retrieve Information From a Crashed Hard Drive
- 1). Open the computer by unscrewing the access door from the back of the computer. You may have to push a button or a release instead or in addition to this step. Disconnect the hard drive cables and unscrew the drive from the case.
- 2). Put the hard drive in a water proof plastic bag and freeze the hard drive for several hours if the drive itself is physically failing.
- 3). Take the drive out of the freezer and connect it to another computer as a secondary drive. Open the other computer and look for additional hard drive connections to connect the drive to. Plug a power cable into the drive. Leave the drive sitting next to the computer on a safe surface away from static electricity.
- 4). Open Windows Explorer and select the files you want to retrieve. Copy the files onto the other hard drive or CD or flash drive.
- 5). Install recovery software such as GetDataBack, Recover My Files or RecoveryFIx, if the hard drive is missing your files (see Resources). Run the software and choose the attached hard drive to scan. Select the files you want to be recovered if they are found and copy them to another drive.
- 6). Shut down the computer. Disconnect the crashed hard drive and close the computer case. If your hard drive is not physically damaged and just the operating system is corrupt, reinstall the drive in the first computer and reformat to use again.