Can you copy everything off my very old PC?

Yes — and usually even when the computer no longer starts.

This is one of the most common jobs we do, and one where people arrive expecting the worst. A machine that won’t boot is very rarely a machine whose files have gone.

“But it doesn’t turn on”

Doesn’t matter, most of the time.

The storage drive is a separate component. A failed power supply, a dead motherboard, a broken screen, a corrupted Windows install — none of those touch the data. We take the drive out, read it on our own equipment, and copy everything off.

The cases where it’s harder are when the drive itself has failed — the clicking, whirring machines. Even then a good proportion is often recoverable; it’s just more involved.

Really old machines

Age is rarely the obstacle people expect. We’ve pulled files off machines twenty years old. What changes with age is the connector, and we keep adapters for the older standards, so a drive from a Windows XP desktop is usually readable.

Two genuine complications worth knowing about. Encrypted drives need the password or recovery key — without it the data is not accessible to us or to anyone. And very old file formats may need something modern to open them, which we can advise on.

What people forget to copy

This is where doing it yourself often goes wrong. Everyone remembers Documents and Pictures. The things that get left behind:

• Email, if stored on the computer rather than in webmail — Outlook data files live somewhere non-obvious
• Browser bookmarks and saved passwords
• Desktop — where a surprising amount of important material lives
• Downloads — usually junk, occasionally the only copy of something
• Anything in the user folder that programs put there quietly — accounts packages are notorious
• Photos inside old software rather than in a normal folder
• Licence keys for software you’ve paid for

We copy the whole user area rather than picking folders, precisely because the important thing is usually the one nobody thought of.

What you’ll need

An external drive big enough for it all. Bring one, or we can supply one. As a rough guide, a drive twice the size of the data gives you room to keep using it as a backup afterwards — which is a much better outcome than a one-off copy sitting in a drawer.

Data recovery and transfer starts from £102. If you’re moving to a new computer we can put everything straight onto that instead.

Afterwards: don’t just bin the old one

Two things.

Check the copy before anything is disposed of. Open some files. Make sure the email is really there. Then wait a couple of weeks — something always surfaces.

Then deal with the drive properly. An old computer holds everything you ever did on it: bank statements, passwords, photographs, correspondence. Deleting files and emptying the bin removes none of it in any meaningful sense.

If the machine is going to a charity shop, a relative, or the tip, the drive needs securely wiping or physically destroying. We do that as part of the job, and it’s the step people skip most often.

Bring the old machine in whatever state it’s in — it doesn’t need to work. Workshop on Station Road, or ring 01753 884700.