Hi jspurrple. It sounds the board on the external casing. So remove the hard drive from it, and connect it to another computer as a "slave". Then proceed to move your data. In case it's the actual hard drive, it's the voltage regulator ON the logic board. It's a transistor around where you connect the power cable, you just rip it off and it will turn on, but BE **CAREFUL** I do not recommend you doing that if you are not an IT tech. I hope this helps.