My laptop battery died suddenly, and now I can't power it on. I've got a new laptop, and I'm looking for a way to retrieve my files from the old one. I successfully removed the hard drive and SSD, but I'm unsure what type they are and how to extract the files. Even if I figure out the right enclosure or equipment, I won't receive it for a few days, and I need those files urgently. I could really use some guidance! By the way, my old laptop is a Lenovo Legion, and both machines run Windows.
2 Answers
Based on the photos you shared, it looks like one is an M.2 NVMe drive and the other is a SATA hard drive. You can usually find M.2 to USB and SATA to USB adapters at places like Best Buy. They usually come with simple instructions: just install your drive in the enclosure and connect it to a USB port. This will make your old drive show up as an additional drive on your new laptop. Just a heads up, if you had BitLocker encryption enabled on your old PC, you’d need the recovery key to access your data.
To figure out what type of drives you have, take a look at this image: [Drive Types](https://driveshero.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/M-2-Ngff-Ssd-Vs-Nvme_3177.png). If your drive looks like the middle one, it's a 2.5" SATA drive, and you'll need a USB to SATA adapter to connect it to your new laptop. If it resembles the left or right one, it's an M.2 drive, which means you’ll need an external enclosure. The left is NVMe and the right is the SATA standard—most enclosures support both, but be sure to verify that detail when ordering.
Thanks for the heads-up! Luckily, I didn't enable any encryption since I'm not too tech-savvy.