Laptop Repair & Recovery Tutorial (100% Useful)

Laptop Repair Is Important

The main functions of the laptop are the same as that of the desktop. An important reason why people choose a laptop over a the desktop is the portability. Whenever problems occur on a laptop, you definitely need to consider laptop repair. So today’s topic is computer diagnosis and repair.

Computer repair is a very broad and complex topic. You should consider the following three aspects when encountering laptop errors: how to diagnose problems, how to troubleshoot them and how to repair your laptops.

Recover Files From Laptop Hard Drive With This Fabulous Tool.

Hardware Components of Laptop

A laptop usually contains the following components, so the repair of it refers to the repair of corresponding parts.

• CPU: it’s the abbreviation of Central Processing Unit. It’s an important electronic circuitry to carry out the instructions of a computer program. The CPU has been applied to computer since the early 1960s.
• CPU fan and CPU socket: the former is used for heat dissipation while the latter is a connector on the motherboard that houses and contacts with CPU.
• Heat sink/heat pipe: they are used to provide air circulation in a compressed space so as to avoid overheating.
• Battery: it’s the main power source for a laptop. The CMOS battery is used to keep the time, date, hard disk and other configuration settings in the CMOS memory.
• Speakers: obviously, it is used to create sound, so that you can hear a voice from your laptop.
• RAM: short for Random-access memory, the RAM means the computer memory that you can access randomly.
• Hard drive: store videos, audios, documents, pictures, photos, and other sorts of data.
• Etc.

Among them, the hard drive is the most important component since it stores many significant data. Once you find your laptop hard disk is crashed, you must take actions immediately to restore files.

Laptop Repair Tutorial

Laptop errors can be divided into mainly two categories: hardware issues and software issues.

Hardware Error Repair

The laptop hardware repair contains mainly 2 steps.

Step 1: manufacturer maintenance.

Each laptop is provided with a warranty when you bought it. Once you find a hardware component is damaged or corrupted, you should first consider returning to the factory for repair. As long as the hardware is not broken intentionally and it’s under warranty, the manufacturer will fix it for you.

What to do with a dead hard drive?

I have found that the platter of a brand new hard drive is not 100% flawless when it comes out from manufacturers. This is because the platter is very precise and has a high requirement in the manufacturing environment. Thus, even a speck of dust or a minor collision could lead to a few to hundreds of bad sectors.

Therefore, if a hard drive is dead and it is not caused by human factors (like physical scratch and logical damage during using), users can choose to send their hard drive back to manufactures for maintenance as long as it doesn’t exceed the warranty period. But before users do this, please remember to backup hard drive data if it’s possible.

Click here if your laptop hard drive is only damaged logically.

If the dead hard drive is an external one, the recovery & repair work would be much easier:

How To Recover Files From Dead External Hard Drive (Easy Fix)

If you are stuck in finding ways to recover files from dead external hard drive efficiently, this passage will be very helpful.

Read More

Step two: replace the damaged part.

If the laptop drive exceeds the warranty period, you can try to remove the damaged part and replace it with a new one. Under such circumstances, you need a screwdriver, such as Phillips screwdriver and hex screwdriver for taking off the cover so as to replace the broken component.

1. Remove the screws with the screwdriver.
2. Take the cover off carefully.
3. Locate the component inside the laptop and take it out.
4. Mount a new one into it and put back the screws.

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Software Error Repair

To fix the software error appeared on your laptop, you should get a laptop diagnostic tool to help you settle down the problems and recover files from the hard drive.

• The built-in Mac repair tools available for you: Disk Utility, Apple Hardware Test, and OnyX.
• The built-in Windows repair tools you can use: System Restore, Troubleshooter, Disk Error Checking, System File Checker, factory reset, Windows Defender (anti-malware tool). These Windows repair tools also work for USB drives.

Here, I’ll mainly introduce the methods for using the Windows repair tool to diagnose and fix disk-related problems in Windows 10.

One: System Restore.

System Restore is a useful tool contain in Windows. It can help you cancel the changes and restore your system to the previous state when problems didn’t occur (the premise is you have enabled the feature under Configure System Restore).

1. Shut down your laptop and restart it.
2. Hold F8 key or another key (this can be different from computer to computer).
3. Wait till the Advanced Boot Options window shows up.
4. Choose Safe Mode with Command Prompt from the list.
5. Type exe into the Command Prompt and hit Enter.
6. Type system restore and hit Enter.
7. Decide which is the restore point you need and then select it.
8. Wait for the system restore process to finish.
9. Reboot your laptop to make changes take effect.

Two: Troubleshooter.

The Troubleshooter is built-in Windows to help you fix normal disk problems & application issues.

1. Find the type here to search icon on your taskbar. (How to fix if the taskbar refuses to work?)
2. Type troubleshoot and select Troubleshoot System settings from the search result.
3. Select Hardware and Devices from the right-hand panel.
4. Click on the Run the troubleshooter button appeared just now.
5. Wait for the problems detecting process to complete.
6. If any errors or problems have been found, Windows will give corresponding solutions. You should choose one to continue under guidance.

If this didn’t work, you can run the Troubleshooter again and choose another solution to have a try.

Three: Disk Error Checking.

As the name suggests, this tool will check the disk and find errors on it. You can get this tool to work in two different ways.

Way 1: check disk in File Explorer.

1. Press Start + E buttons on your keyboard to open File Explorer.
2. Locate the drive which needs to be repaired.
3. Right click on the drive and choose Properties from the context menu.
4. Shift to Tools tab from the General tab.
5. Find the Error checking section and click on the Check button.
6. If the system detects no error, it will show you a window saying You don’t need to scan this drive (you can still choose to Scan drive); if any errors are detected, you’ll be asked to check the drive so just click to scan.
7. Wait for the scanning to finish.
8. Follow the instructions given by the system.

Way 2: run CHKDSK in Command Prompt.

1. Click the Start button from the lower-left corner of the laptop screen.
2. Scroll down to find Windows System folder and expand it.
3. Right click on Command Prompt.
4. Choose More from the pop-up menu.
5. Choose Run as administrator from the submenu.
6. Type CHKDSK *: /f into the Administrator: Command Prompt window (* stands for the drive letter of target drive).
7. Wait for 3 stages to complete. If any problems are found, Windows will fix it automatically.

All in all, it’s very useful to run the error checking tool when you have corrupted file or directory or when the laptop says your operating system is not found.

1. It fixes soft errors by rewriting the faulty data.
2. It resolves hard errors by marking the certain section of your disk as being damaged, so it won’t be called for future use.

In addition, there’s a feature named Security and Maintenance, which is able to help monitor your Drive status.

Four: System File Checker.

The SFC tool is built in all modern versions of Windows and it is mainly used to repair corrupted system files.

1. Repeat step 1 ~ 5 mentioned in the previous part (way 2: run CHKDSK in Command Prompt) to open Command Prompt.
2. Type sfc /scannow and press Enter on the keyboard.
3. Wait for the scan. (This command will scan the protected system files; if any corrupted files are found, it will replace them with a cached copy located in %WinDir%\System32\dllcache folder.)

Five: Windows Defender.

Windows Defender is the anti-malware component built-in Microsoft Windows. It is able to scan your drive for malware, viruses, and security threats so as to protect the laptop. (How to recover files that have been deleted by virus?)

You have 2 choices to use this tool: enable Windows Defender real-time protection and schedule a scan in Windows Defender.

How to turn on real-time protection:

1. Press Start + I buttons to open Windows Settings.
2. Select Update & Security.
3. Choose Windows Defender from the left pane.
4. Click Open Windows Defender Security Center.
5. Choose Virus & threat protection.
6. Select Virus & threat protection settings.
7. Toggle the Real-time protection switch to On.

How to schedule a scan in Windows Defender:

1. Type Task Scheduler into the search box on the taskbar and hit Enter.
2. Expand Task Scheduler Library, Microsoft, and Windows folders.
3. Select Windows Defender.
4. Double click the Windows Defender Scheduled Scan option in the top-center pane.
5. Shift to Triggers tab and hit New… at the bottom left.
6. Configure the time and frequency; then, click OK.

Read this if you find Windows Defender deleted your useful files.

Six: Factory Reset.

This tool helps you to restore your laptop to its original manufacturer settings. This can fix almost all the common errors appeared on your laptop, but it will erase all the files and folders on your laptop. If you need them back, please read:

How To Recover Files After Factory Reset Laptop

In this post, I'll mainly tell you how to recover files after factory reset and how to restore laptop to factory settings.

Read More

The steps to factory reset a laptop are not all the same, you can get help from the corresponding official website.

Attention!

You can click to see how to deal with Windows was unable to repair the drive error.

Laptop Data Recovery

You need to finish two stages to recover data from your laptop.

Stage one: download and install the MiniTool Power Data Recovery (please don’t save the program to the drive that contains lost files; otherwise, secondary damage will be brought).

MiniTool Power Data Recovery TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Stage two: run the data recovery software to start laptop data recovery.

1. Select a proper module from the left pane.
2. Specify the drive in which the lost files are included.
3. Click on the Scan button and wait for the scan.
4. Browse the found items one by one carefully to pick out the ones you really need.
5. Click on the Save button to open the directory settings window.
6. Select a drive as the destination to store recovered files.
7. Click on the OK button to confirm.
8. Wait for the recovery process to complete automatically.

Manufacturer maintenance vs data recovery agency service:

• One of the most serious deficiencies of manufacturer maintenance is that all data saved in the hard drive may be lost since low-level format would be performed to hard disk with parameter error or manufacturers will send users a new hard disk if the previous one has quality issue.
• Yet, the obvious deficiencies of getting data recovery company to help you are high cost and privacy leakage possibility; you need to pay much money for the data recovery and your confidential data may be leaked out. (Curious about the data recovery prices?)

The laptop recovery is not that difficult, right?

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Conclusion

It’s easy to find errors on a laptop, so you’d better make a backup of your laptop hard drive data (at least important data). In this way, you can get away from the terrible consequences brought by data loss when disaster really happens to you (click to see the disaster recovery plan).

The laptop repair tutorial given in the above content is easy to understand and master. Please know them well in case of any unexpected laptop issues.