Motherboard dead -recover data

[cb83]

My laptop died unexpectedly. I'm looking to get the files and pictures off of it. Any suggestions? 

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@cb83 

The files and data are on the drive, not the motherboard.

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. If the old drive is an m.2 SSD, you will need an extra adapter to connect the SSD to a SATA-to-USB adapter. This second adapter is illustrated below)

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 trial version is free http://www.file-recovery.com/

[cb83]

Hello @WAWood, 

My hard drive is a 1 TB 5400 rpm SATA, https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05583260. So does that mean I can attempt your solutions?

[WAWood]

@cb83 

Yes -- with a standard SATA drive, you can use the adapter pictured in my response.