One of the most terrifying experiences any computer user can live through is the moment of sheer panic that occurs when your computer goes south with all your files still aboard. Despite the cliché mantra “backup, backup, backup”, many people in this situation find themselves on the brink of losing all of their irreplaceable files, pictures, and information. What can you do if you find yourself in this situation?
Assess the damage
What happened to your computer? There are many possible situations: You could be booting up to a Blue Screen of Death (BSoD), or perhaps your computer isn't booting up at all. Other common issues include boot hanging (your computer freezes solid during startup), viruses, and hard drive corruption (often resulting in Hard Disk Not Found or Operating System Not Found errors).
If the problem you are experiencing is listed above, you're in luck – your files should be recoverable. The only situation in which most or all of your files cannot be recovered easily is a hardware failure (resulting from a dropped laptop, etc). In this situation, you need a trained data recovery firm.
If your error is caused by a software glitch like the ones listed above, the following technique can be used to successfully retrieve your files from the stranded computer almost every time.
How to recover your lost files
The most common cause of a “dead computer” is a software problem like a virus or a boot error. The secret to retrieving your data is realizing that the issue is not the hard drive the data is on, but the software running every time you turn the computer on. If your important files are stored on the same drive as the malfunctioning operating system, the best way to access them is to bypass the troublesome operating system software itself.
Bypassing the error to access your files
So how can we do bypass the malfunctioning operating system to access our data? The simplest solution is to turn off your computer, remove your hard drive, and plug it in to a second computer with a working operating system. This allows the second computer to read the data on the malfunctioning drive without ever executing the software that is causing the error. For details on removing and installing a hard drive search “install second hard drive” for hundreds of tutorials and articles.
Once the hard drive is plugged in to the second computer, it will recognize your original drive and notify you that it has been successfully installed. Navigate to the newly installed drive, through the My Computer interface, and you should be able to browse the original file structure of the drive without ever activating whatever viruses or errors may exist there. Now that you have access to your files, back up all essentials to the second computer's main disk or an external flash drive. Congratulations, mission accomplished!
So what do I do now?
Now that you have successfully retrieved your files, how can you fix your original computer? While there are often ways that you can bypass and/or fix the errors without wiping the hard drive, most of the time the best solution is to reset everything and start from scratch.
Once you are certain you have all of your essential files backed up, re-install the hard drive in your original computer and use your operating system install CD to format the drive and install a fresh copy of the operating system. Copy your files over from your backup media, and you now have a fully functioning computer with all of your files intact. Good job!
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Tags: blue screen, bsod, registry, windows