Laptop Screen Broken or Black? How to Get Your Files Off

A cracked panel, a laptop display broken after a drop, or a screen that’s simply gone black: the computer may be fine, but you can’t see anything to get your files off it. The good news is that a dead laptop screen rarely means dead data. The display is a separate part from the storage, and there are several ways around it. Here’s the order to try them, from easiest to most involved.

Laptop display broken or black? First, confirm it’s running

Before you work around the screen, make sure the rest of the laptop is alive:

• Do the power and keyboard lights come on? Does Caps Lock toggle its light?
• Can you hear the fan, or feel warmth near the vents after a minute?
• Shine a flashlight at the screen at an angle. A faint image means the backlight has failed but the panel is still drawing.

If there are no signs of life at all, the problem is bigger than the screen. Our guide to getting files off a dead laptop covers that case. On a Mac, see MacBook won’t turn on.

Option 1: Plug in an external monitor

This is the fastest fix for a broken laptop screen, and it often works even when the built-in panel is completely black.

1. Connect a monitor or TV to the laptop’s HDMI, DisplayPort, or USB-C / Thunderbolt port. Not every USB-C port carries video; look for a DisplayPort or Thunderbolt symbol next to it, or check the manufacturer’s specs.
2. Turn the laptop on and wait for it to boot.

On Windows

If the external screen stays blank, Windows may be set to show the picture only on the broken built-in display. Hold the Windows key and tap P to cycle through the projection options (PC screen only, Duplicate, Extend, Second screen only), then release. Duplicate or Second screen only should put the desktop on the monitor. Give it a few seconds after each change.

If you have to sign in without seeing the screen, you can usually press a key to dismiss the lock screen, type your PIN or password, and press Enter.

On a Mac

MacBooks usually detect an external display automatically and either mirror or extend the desktop. If the login window lands on the broken screen, you may be able to type your password blind and press Return. You can also use clamshell mode: with the MacBook connected to power, an external display, and an external keyboard and mouse, close the lid and the external monitor becomes the main screen.

Once you can see your desktop, copy your important files to an external drive or upload them to cloud storage before doing anything else.

Option 2: Check what’s already in the cloud

You may not need the laptop at all. Before you go further, check:

• OneDrive: sign in at onedrive.com. Windows often syncs Desktop, Documents, and Pictures to OneDrive without people realizing it.
• iCloud Drive: on a Mac with Desktop & Documents Folders syncing turned on, those files are at iCloud.com.
• Google Drive or Dropbox: check the web version for the folders you synced.

Look at the modified dates on the most recent files. If the sync stopped working weeks ago, the cloud copy may be out of date.

Option 3: Remote access (only if you set it up before)

If you’d already set up Chrome Remote Desktop, Remote Desktop (Windows Pro editions), Screen Sharing on a Mac, or a similar tool, you can connect from another computer and copy files over the network. This only works if remote access was configured and enabled before the screen broke, and the laptop is powered on and connected to the internet.

Option 4: Remove the drive and connect it to another computer

If the laptop has a removable drive, you can take it out, put it in a USB enclosure or adapter, and read it from another computer. This works whether the screen is broken or the whole laptop is dead. Our step-by-step guide to getting files off a dead laptop covers identifying the drive type, choosing the right adapter, and copying files.

If the drive is encrypted with BitLocker

Many Windows 11 laptops turn on BitLocker or Device Encryption automatically. When you connect that drive to another PC, Windows will ask for the 48-digit recovery key. If you signed in with a Microsoft account, the key is often saved at aka.ms/myrecoverykey. See how to find your BitLocker recovery key for other places to look. Without the key, the data can’t be read.

When the storage is soldered to the board

On many modern laptops, there’s no drive to remove:

• MacBooks with a T2 chip (most Intel models from 2018 to 2020) and all Apple silicon MacBooks have storage soldered to the logic board and encrypted by the chip. The data can only be read through that board.
• Many thin Windows laptops and Chromebooks use soldered eMMC, UFS, or NVMe storage instead of a removable M.2 drive.

For these laptops, your options are an external monitor (Option 1), cloud sync, or repairing the display so you can use the laptop normally. If the board itself has failed, getting the data back means board-level repair to bring the original board back up long enough to read it.

Should you just replace the screen?

If the laptop works fine on an external monitor, a screen replacement is usually a reasonable repair, and done correctly it doesn’t touch your data. Before you hand it over, back up what you can through the external monitor, and ask the shop not to reset or reinstall anything.

If the laptop was dropped, check for other damage too. A drop hard enough to crack the screen can also hurt a spinning hard drive; if you hear clicking or grinding, power it off and read hard drive clicking: what to do. For MacBooks, see dropped MacBook data recovery.

The bottom line

A broken laptop screen usually leaves your files untouched. Try an external monitor first, switching displays with Windows + P on a PC or using clamshell mode on a Mac. Check OneDrive, iCloud, and other cloud services for copies you already have. If the laptop has a removable drive, an inexpensive USB enclosure can get you in, as long as you have the BitLocker key. On MacBooks and other laptops with soldered storage, the path runs through the original board.

If the laptop won’t cooperate and your files were never backed up, our laptop data recovery service handles failed drives and dropped or liquid-damaged laptops for one flat $1,200 price for a single device. Shipping is free and prepaid, and you pay nothing unless the recovery succeeds.