Question about data retrieval from a dying desk top

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My late mom's twelve year old Apple was industructable. Kept on working fine long after it could no longer handle the Net.

Meant to retrieve some stuff from it.

Keep putting off the task.

Then one evening, while fooling around on this, new computer, I heard a POP sound (like a light bulb go out), and saw that mom's computer screen had died.

On apples the screen and the equivalent of the "tower" are all one unit.

So even though the guts of the computer still seems to work my question is this: is there still a way to get at the data when the screen goes dead? Can some geek for hire somehow circumvent the dead screen to get at the stuff in the computer? Or is data retrieval now a lost cause?

Your data should be OK and recoverable - but you might need a toolkit!

If the machine boots up (but you just can't see it), it may be possible to view the contents by connecting it to another machine on a network. However, this will depend whether the machine and/or drive is set up to allow that, which wouldn't be the easiest thing to change if you can't see what you're doing.

Failing that, the electronic connections to a hard-drive are pretty standardised, so you could remove the hard-drive (HDD) from the broken machine and either install it into another machine, or probably easier, into an external HDD enclosure (effectively converting it into an external USB drive that you could use on any machine.) Either would be routine jobs for any repair shop. If you don't intend to have the old machine repaired, the hard-drive enclosure route is a pretty easy DIY job, as you don't have to worry about breaking the old machine, and HDD enclosures are much simpler than the inside of a whole computer (posting a quick pic of the hard-drive's connections would enable us to tell you what kind of enclosure you'd need - they're usually cheaper than what a repair shop would charge you for data recovery.)

Okay. Its doable but complicated. Thanks.

Its a Apple E Mac from the early 2000's. So its that kind of hard drive.

Not as knowledgeable on Apple as PC but easiest approach is to remove hard disk from mac, get an ata to usb adapter and read the disk on another mac as an external drive. Modern macs can read old mac disks.

You may need to google howto open the mac to get the disk out.

The E Macs HD used a standard ATA connector, pull the HD out and drop it into any other machine with ATA on the motherboard.

To disassemble an E Mac place it screen down on a soft surface like a towel and remove the screws at the back. A word of caution - there may be electrolytic capacitors inside which store electricity even when unplugged and give you a nasty shock. Google what they look like and avoid touching the pins.

Buy one of those kits that converts the hard drive into an external one with a USB connector. That way, you can continue to access the data stored on it and maybe even use it as a secondary HD on your replacement computer.