A staff laptop just died: what your business should do
A dead work laptop is two problems: someone who can't work, and company data that may have no copy. Here is how to handle both without losing files.
It's 9:30 on a busy morning and someone in accounts says their laptop won't turn on. For a small business, that's two problems at once: a person who can't work, and a machine that may hold company data nobody has a copy of. Office managers often try to fix the first by rushing the second, and that's when files get lost. It works better to treat them separately. Get the person working now, then deal with the laptop calmly.
First ten minutes: don't make it worse
Ask what happened just before it failed. A dropped laptop, a spilled drink and a slow decline over several weeks all point to different faults and different urgency.
- Liquid or a fall: shut it down, unplug it and leave it off. Repeated power-on attempts can turn a repairable fault into a much bigger one.
- Clicking, or very slow before it died: stop retrying. If the storage is failing, every extra start can reduce what can be recovered.
- Black screen, but fans or lights come on: try an external monitor. If the picture appears there, the data is probably fine and the screen is the issue.
- Swollen case or lifting trackpad: stop using it and stop charging it. That can be a swollen battery, which is a safety issue.
Don't run disk repair tools, don't choose "Reset this PC", and don't let a well-meaning colleague open it. Our laptop repair page explains the common faults if you want to know what you're dealing with.
Get the person working today
Most office work no longer lives on one machine, and this is where you find out how true that is for you. Any spare or shared computer will do, as long as it's up to date and protected. Have the employee sign in to their own account rather than borrowing a colleague's, so your records stay accurate and nobody ends up sharing a password. Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams and OneDrive all work in a browser, and business software hosted online usually needs nothing more than a login.
Next, find out what's missing. Ask directly: "What were you working on that only lived on that laptop?" The usual suspects are the desktop, the Downloads folder, a local Outlook archive, and anything in a folder that OneDrive wasn't syncing. Scanned documents and old exports turn up here often.
Before the laptop leaves the building
- Find the BitLocker recovery key. Many business laptops have encrypted drives, and after a repair the laptop may ask for this key. For a work account it's usually stored in Microsoft Entra or your company's directory. Without it, the data may be gone for good, even if the hardware is fine.
- Decide how sensitive the contents are. Client files, payroll or health information change who you should hand it to. Ask how the device is stored and who can see it, and take a note of the serial number.
- Tell the repairer what matters most. Say clearly if the data matters more than the laptop. That changes the order of the work.
- Check the warranty. A business-class laptop may still have on-site cover, so look up the serial number before paying for anything.
If the laptop was lost or stolen rather than broken, skip all of this. Sign the user out of all sessions, change their password, and use your device management tools if you have them.
Repair or replace?
There's no single rule, but these questions usually settle it. Is the laptop still fast enough and receiving Windows or macOS updates? Is the fault a single part, such as a screen, battery or keyboard, or is it the motherboard? How long would this person be without a proper machine while waiting either way? A newer laptop with one failed part is normally worth repairing. An old laptop that can't run a supported operating system usually isn't, though you may still need its data first.
If you replace it, don't wipe or recycle the old one until you have confirmed that nothing is left on it that you need. If the drive has failed and the files matter, our data recovery team can assess it before anything else is tried.
Make the next failure boring
Laptops will keep failing, so the goal is for the next one to be a nuisance rather than a crisis:
- Keep one spare laptop, updated and ready to go.
- Redirect Desktop, Documents and Pictures to OneDrive, so saved work leaves the machine automatically.
- Keep a simple inventory of who has which device, with serial numbers, purchase dates and warranty end dates.
- Confirm that BitLocker keys are stored centrally, then test finding one.
Sorting this out is ordinary work for small business IT support. If you have a laptop down today, or want the next one to cause less trouble, call (213) 986-4855.