Repair options

[Kitten04]

My HP pavilion 15 crashed randomly and we smelt smoke. It ended up that a piece of the motherboard is smoked, and the hard drive also is not working so I Iost all of my files and the rest of the stuff saved on my computer. It just sucks because I bought this computer for $700 thinking it would last through school and it's already dead after just 2 years and I don't have a warranty on it right now. I'm a college student in nursing school so money is pretty tight right now so I just need any help or advice to either try to fix that computer or the best way to sell the parts that are not broken so that I can actually manage. I am already back in school so I just really need to figure this all out as soon as possible so that I can make it through school. I used a lot of my graduation money on that laptop too, so I am kind of just screwed especially since working while in nursing school is almost impossible. I am also slightly pissed at HP because the problems that happened are a manufacturer problem and I have taken really good care of that laptop. There may be no help for me, but I would appreciate any advice.

REPLY

[WAWood]

@Kitten04 

Your files were not stored on the motherboard, but instead, on the hard drive. 

You posted this in the DESKTOPS section but your model number indicates this is a LAPTOP. Is that correct?

So, if you can REMOVE the drive from the PC, then you can follow the instructions below to recover the files.

Your best bet for recovering data now is to do the following:
1) Remove the disk drive from the old PC. If this is a SATA hard drive or a SATA SSD, this is a simple thing to do. If this is an m.2 SSD, that could be either screwed to the motherboard or soldered to the motherboard. If the second, you would need to have a techician remove it for you, or you risk seriously damaging the PC doing it yourself.
2) If you have a desktop PC with a spare hard drive connector, then connect the old drive to that. If the old drive is a SATA drive, connect both the power cable and the data cable. (This adapter is illustrated below) If the old drive is an m.2 SSD, you will need a USB-to-mSATA cable.

3) Try to retrieve the files and folders you want to save from the old drive and copy them to the new PC.

If this does not work, then you need to do the following:
1) Download and install this utility on a working PC http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/recover_data_in_3_steps_with_minitool_power_data_recovery_free_...
2) Run the data recovery utility to see what can be retrieved from the old drive.

If that tool does not find what you need, an alternative is Recuva http://www.piriform.com/recuva

And, if that does not work well, the best tool out there is this one, but only the demo version is free https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

[Kitten04]

Thank you for trying to help. I actually already took out the disk drive and tried this and it didn't work. Even with the adapter the disk drive doesn't do anything but get warm. There's no sound and it doesn't spin. Also sorry I guess I put it in the wrong section it is a laptop.