Your Work Laptop Has Broken. What Should You Actually Do?

Ashvanth Technologies, Navalur · 10 July 2026

Plenty of the people who walk into our Navalur branch are holding a laptop that belongs to their employer, usually anxious and often about to make the situation worse. A company machine is not simply a laptop you did not pay for - it is managed, monitored and inventoried, and that changes the right course of action.

Tell your IT team first

Before anything else, raise a ticket. Not because of bureaucracy, but because it protects you.

Most companies have a support contract that covers this. Many have spare machines. Some explicitly forbid third-party repair, and having a machine repaired outside that policy - however well-intentioned - can turn a hardware fault into a disciplinary matter. A logged ticket also creates a record that the fault was reported when it happened, which matters if there is any later question about damage.

If they authorise an external repair, ask them to say so in writing. We are happy to invoice a company directly and provide documentation of the work.

What not to do

Do not try to open it. Corporate machines often carry asset tags and tamper-evident seals, and breaking one converts a covered warranty repair into something you may be liable for.

Do not attempt to wipe or reinstall it. Managed laptops are usually encrypted and enrolled in device management. Wiping one can destroy the encryption keys and lock the machine out permanently, and it can look like an attempt to remove evidence even when it is not.

Do not copy company data onto a personal drive in an effort to rescue it. That is a data protection issue and, for anyone handling client or regulated data, a serious one. If the data matters, that is your IT team's problem to solve, with your help.

Do not keep using a laptop with a swollen battery while waiting for approval. That is a safety issue and overrides process. Switch it off, stop charging it, and escalate.

The data question

The first thing most people ask is whether their work is lost. Usually it is not.

A laptop that will not switch on is normally a board fault, and the drive is untouched. If the machine is managed, much of the work may already be synced to company storage. Where the drive itself has failed, recovery is often possible - but on an encrypted corporate drive it requires the recovery key, which your IT team holds. This is another reason to route it through them rather than trying to solve it yourself.

Where we fit in

We work with a number of small and mid-sized companies along OMR on exactly this basis: they authorise the repair, we collect the machine, and we invoice the company. For firms without a dedicated IT function, that is often faster and cheaper than a brand service contract, particularly for physical damage and liquid spills that no warranty covers anyway.

We can also handle fleet work - servicing a batch of machines, SSD upgrades across a set of laptops, or secure erasure with documentation when equipment is retired.

What we will not do is work on a company machine at an individual employee's request when we can see it is a managed device and there is no authorisation. That protects you as much as us.

If it is your own laptop used for work

Different situation, and simpler. The main thing is turnaround, since you presumably cannot work without it. Tell us that when you bring it in - we hold common screens, batteries, keyboards and SSDs in stock precisely so the frequent jobs can finish the same day, and we will prioritise accordingly. Free doorstep pickup across Navalur and the OMR corridor means you do not lose half a day to the repair as well.

Frequently asked questions