Long-Distance file recovery help

[RadiatingLight]

My great uncle lives in Europe and does 3D design. A few months back I recommended he purchase an XPS 15 when he was in the US, and I helped him transfer all the files from his old laptop to his new one.

Now, he calls me and tells me that his laptop is broken, because it doesn't accept the password he's trying to type in. while I'm nearly certain that it's not the laptop's fault, he needs a way to get his files off the laptop which he forgot the password to.

 

if he was here, it'd be no problem, since the drive isn't bitlocker encrypted or anything, but since he's thousands of miles away and isn't very computer-literate, I'm trying to think of the best way I could help him remotely. I'm thinking of getting him to install TeamViewer and plug a USB stick into his other (older) laptop, allowing me to create some bootable media on that USB stick, and trying to slowly guide him through the process of booting from USB on his XPS 15, then getting the files off and/or resetting the password.

 

does anyone have a better idea, or have any idea what I should put on the bootable USB? I'm thinking just windows for now, but not sure.

[Langley_Man]

send him to the closest computer store

[RadiatingLight]

Just now, LangleyNerd said:

send him to the closest computer store

He says that they've looked at it with no solution. quite strange TBH since it's a pretty simple problem, but he says the 2 computer stores in the area were puzzled. (although he vaguely mentioned something about one of them getting into the PC and doing something with the cloud, not sure what he meant by that)

[Langley_Man]

hmm so if i were you. maybe look online and find a reputable company close to him. give them a call and set things up for him to drop it off and arrange all communications to be done with u via emai or calling skype or whatever. doing things remotely is hard. it could also be hardware. just watch his back by taking the lead on getting it fixed

[Tetanus]

Where in Europe? If he is close to me I'll be happy to help.

 

- T