SATA M.2 recovery, HELP!

[Ibeware]

My laptop died recently (100% convinced the motherboard shorted out) but I have many files and projects on it that are really important. I know, extremely foolish of me not to back up such important data.

 

I managed to extract the SATA m.2 SSD out of it, visually it looks intact so my question is: Can I just plug it into my Desktop PC via an external enclosure knowing it has basically and entire OS on it and extract my files?

[kirashi]

12 minutes ago, Ibeware said:

Can I just plug it into my Desktop PC via an external enclosure knowing it has basically and entire OS on it and extract my files?

If the drive wasn't encrypted using a hardware based encryption module in the laptop, you should be able to connect it to another machine and access the data.

[Ibeware]

2 minutes ago, kirashi said:

If the drive wasn't encrypted using a hardware based encryption module in the laptop, you should be able to connect it to another machine and access the data.

I'm not sure about about hardware encryption, it was a old Acer Aspire 5, however my fear is that my PC might try to format the drive if I plug it in. (I apologise, I'm not very tech literate)

[Kilrah]

No reason it would. If it did you'd just say no anyway and look for other solutions. 

[Mr.Nelf]

On 5/26/2021 at 10:09 PM, Ibeware said:

...my fear is that my PC might try to format the drive if I plug it in. (I apologise, I'm not very tech literate)

Yea, they don't usually try to format automatically(at least, I've not seen this behavior in my 25-some years dealing with Windows).

 

I'm curious about which device you used(assuming you've done it by now) to connect it to another computer.  I've got an NVMe SSD I want to access, but not while I've booted from it.(can currently only access it when it's in one of 2 of our laptops that has slots for 'em).  I've had an impossible time sorting through all the Chinese Con BS on eBay/Amazon.