As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly recover files from a failed hard drive.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 2 hours until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Disconnect the failed drive, stop trying to open it, and write down exactly what happens when it is connected, including any clicking, grinding, burning smell, heat or repeated disconnects.
   2. Gather the drive type, connection, computer operating system, encryption status and the names of the folders or file types you need most, without opening or changing anything on the failed drive.
   3. Prepare a separate drive with enough free space for a clone or image and a separate destination for recovered files, and do not install recovery software on the failed drive.
   4. Open ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, paste the supplied prompt, replace the bracketed slots with your details, and ask it to stop if the symptoms indicate mechanical or electrical failure.
   5. Follow only a non-destructive recovery route: if software recovery is appropriate, make a read-only clone or image first and recover files from that copy to the separate destination; if the drive makes mechanical or electrical noises, disconnect it and contact a data-recovery specialist instead.
   6. Open recovered files from the destination, compare the recovered folder names and file types with what you remember, and keep the original drive untouched until you have checked the files you need.

   Prompt

   Help me recover files from a failed hard drive without making the situation worse. Do not claim that files can be recovered unless the symptoms support that conclusion. First classify the failure as logical, electrical, mechanical or uncertain, and list the clues behind your classification. Ask only the questions needed to choose the safest next step.
   
   My details:
   - Drive type and connection: [for example, external USB hard drive, internal SATA hard drive or SSD]
   - Approximate capacity: [slot]
   - Computer and operating system: [slot]
   - What happens when connected: [slot]
   - Sounds, smells, heat or repeated disconnects: [slot]
   - Whether the drive appears in the operating system: [slot]
   - Whether the files are encrypted: [yes, no or unknown]
   - Whether I have another drive with enough free space for an image or recovered files: [slot]
   - Whether the data exists anywhere else: [slot]
   
   Give me a conservative decision tree. If there are clicking, grinding, scraping, burning or electrical symptoms, tell me to disconnect the drive and explain that a data-recovery specialist is the safer route. Do not tell me to initialise, format, repair, defragment or repeatedly power-cycle the drive. Do not suggest writing anything to the failed drive. If software recovery is reasonable, explain how to work from a read-only clone or image and how to save recovered files to a different drive. Name commands only when they are necessary, explain what each one changes, and stop before any destructive action. End with a checklist for checking whether recovered files open and whether important folders and file types are present.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.