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How to Recover Files from a Dead or Non-Booting Laptop

Your laptop won't turn on, but your data is almost certainly still intact. In most cases, the failure is the motherboard, power supply, or operating system — not the storage drive. This guide covers diagnosing the problem, removing the drive and connecting it externally via USB adapter, booting from a USB recovery drive, Target Disk Mode for MacBooks, and using recovery software for corrupted file systems.

Methods Covered

Diagnosis of common laptop failures (dead power supply, GPU failure, OS corruption, clicking drives). SATA and NVMe drive removal with USB adapter connection. Linux live USB boot method for accessing internal drives. MacBook Target Disk Mode and Mac Sharing Mode. Cloud backup recovery from iCloud, Google Drive, and OneDrive.