Power key, CAPS lock, charging and power light are all flickering.

[awwsama]

Hey,

I was having some charging issues recently, my laptop would only start to charge when I turned it off or into sleep mode. The problem persisted but it wasn't serious and I was too busy to get it checked plus there were no online remedies to it.

Yesterday my laptop powered off due to low battery like it does normally but it didn't start up. I tried doing a hard reboot and everything became worse, usually it turns on but instead it started flickering power key, CAPS lock power and light keys. At first it was a single constant blip but now it is flickering randomly (I think, because I tried making sense of the LED signals codes available online but mine is too rapid)

I am really worried because I don't want to lose my windows or laptop, it has a lot of important data.

Any help guys?

Thanks.

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@awwsama 

Every time I read one of these threads about folks worried about losing critical data -- I have to wonder why they never bothered to even spend 10 minutes backing off that data to USB sticks.

All you will be able to recover at best from the drive is personal data. You will not be able to recover settings, website information (including user accounts and passwords) or applications.

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

[awwsama]

Sir, I have my data backed up in an external hard, a PC and on cloud storage. The data I mentioned was my window settings and such. It was a mind-boggling day for me as I had to re-install all the softwares, get them activated AGAIN; I had to log-in into all these websites and surely I had forgotten passwords to many. I was hoping this wouldn't be the case.

I took the laptop to a technician today, and he concluded that the motherboard was short-circuited and needed repairs. A new adapter and power supply, some repairs, and I was done.

[awwsama]

@WAWood

I bought and attached a new SSD M2 to the laptop and got my new windows installed in it so that I didn't have to format my previous drive. It took me a couple of hours but I installed all my previous softwares installed, IDs logged in and settings back to the way I liked.

I did find some tips on how to save some other settings that I'd like to share.

I am running Opera as a browser and my biggest wish was to save the tabs I had opened because then I would just have to log-in or use them as is, instead of trying to remember which tabs were open. (I do have a LOT of tabs opened at a time)

After an Opera crash a few weeks ago I had stumbled upon this sleek little trick and I used the same to copy all my bookmarks, speed dials, history, session and tabs opened into the new windows.

https://forums.opera.com/topic/37375/recover-lost-tabs/2
I reckon this is the case for other browsers too. As for the files in C drive, I recommend everyone to use a cloud storage to have a back-up, I found mine back. Thanks @WAWood for the time, I will use the utilities and see if I can salvage anything else.