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How to Recover Files From a PC That Won’t Boot

When a computer won’t start, the data on its drive is usually still fine, the problem is Windows, not your files. By booting the machine from a USB stick instead, you can reach the drive directly and copy your photos, documents, and other files off to safety before doing anything riskier, like a repair or reinstall.

Step by step

1. Boot the FATALnet stick on the dead PC and open File Recovery from the menu.
2. Pick the drive that holds the files you need, usually the main Windows drive.
3. Let it scan. It lists recoverable photos, documents, and other files, including deleted ones.
4. Save what you find to a different drive, an external USB drive or second disk. Never recover onto the same drive you’re reading from, or you risk overwriting the very files you’re trying to save.
5. If the drive is physically failing (clicking, very slow, dropping out), image it first with the data-rescue tool, then recover from that copy instead of the failing drive.

What to expect

Once your files are safely copied off, you can repair, reinstall, or replace the machine without the pressure of losing data. If the scan finds nothing and the drive isn’t detected at all, the drive itself may have failed, at that point a professional data-recovery lab is the next step.