How to recover important files from Windows, whether locked or not working.

Not sure how to recover important files from locked windows? Find out how to do this in this guide. Some important files are saved on your PC’s hard drive or memory. But it has suddenly decided to leave on foot? A blackout has made our PC inaccessible, which hangs on startup without letting us enter the desktop?. How to recover important files from Windows: in this case, follow the steps as given in this article.

In these cases, it’s vital to recover files from locked or non-working Windows. This is especially true if we have no other backups.

This guide will show how to recover any file from a Windows PC that won’t start or shows strange errors. This includes videos, documents, and music.

We must act quickly. The hard drive may fail and lose all saved files.

Once the files are saved, we can focus on recovering the OS. We can now format it without fear.

1) Download the recovery tool.

First, know that, even if Windows is locked, the files are on your hard drive. You just need to find a way to access them.

To access the files, we must use an “external” OS. It must run independently of Windows and access the PC’s disks to show us all the stored files.

The best free tool is definitely a GNU/LLinux distribution—a complete operating system bootable from a CD or USB stick to be started before Windows.

Many GNU/Linux distributions can serve this purpose. We recommend Xubuntu, a lightweight, high-performance version of Ubuntu. It has great peripheral compatibility and is easy to download.

2) Preparation CD, DVD, or USB stick

At the end of the download, the ISO image obtained must be saved on a support to be used. In the past, CDs and DVDs were very popular. But a USB stick with at least 2 GB of space is also good for creating the recovery environment. To use optical media, simply use any burning program to save the ISO on the disk. If we need a faster USB stick, we can help. We can use a free program, UNetbootin, to create boot support. You can get UNetbootin here -> UNetbootin.

Just download it and run it. This will make it operational. Of course, first connect the USB stick to the PC we are using to create the recovery environment.

Select the Disk Image item and then click on the button with the dots (…) to select the ISO image of Xubuntu, then down select the drive letter of the USB stick to be used in the Unit item and then click OK. After a few minutes, the USB stick is ready. It has the recovery environment. We can now move to the locked or broken Windows PC.

3. Start the recovery environment.

Insert the USB stick or the burned disc into the PC’s reader/writer. Then, start the PC by pressing the power button. To prevent the PC from calling the hard disk’s OS, press F8 repeatedly as soon as it starts. This should open the Boot Selector, a small BIOS/UEFI tool that lets us choose which device to boot.

The graphics may change the BIOS/UEFI and the key to press to see this screen. You can search Google for your motherboard (or notebook) model, plus “Boot menu.” In this menu, we select the voice for the key (USB, removable, etc.) or the disc player to start the recovery environment.

After a few minutes of waiting, we will finally start Ubuntu with a usable desktop, a mouse pointer, and various tools ready to be exploited.

Let’s check that the mouse and keyboard work. We need to learn this OS. It will help us recover files from locked Windows.

4) Access to fixed disks to recover files 

After learning the new OS (it runs only from USB or DVB, saves nothing on the disk, and runs in RAM), we can try to access the hard disks and partitions on the locked Windows PC. We can use the File Manager tool for this. It can be accessed by clicking the mouse button at the top left.

Once we open the File Manager window, we will see all the partitions and disks present on the PC locked in the side panel. Recognize the right partition from the size and type of folders it contains.

Click the disk or partition icon to open it in File Manager. If it opens correctly, it is the right partition. It will find the Windows folders inside.

As soon as you find the right partition, you will need to take you to the path where Windows saves all user (or users) files, i.e., the Users folder.

Here, you will find all active PC users. You can access the common folders (Downloads, Music, Videos, Documents, and Images) to recover all files.

The files saved in this way will have to be copied from another part. So it’s better to keep another quite large USB stick or, better yet, a portable hard drive. Save all the files in a new space separate from the locked operating system.

After the files are recovered, turn off the recovery environment. Click the mouse-shaped button, then shut down or restart. Then, try to recover Windows. You can do so with peace of mind, knowing our files are safe.