Ok, so there was a very close lightning strike about an hour ago (basically next to my house), and now I'm afraid to turn on my laptop. The laptop was plugged in (and in sleep mode) at the time of the strike. As soon as the strike happened I ran to the laptop and unplugged it as quickly as possible.

From what I have read to date about lighting strike experiences from other people, the HDD is rarely affected. However if, let's say, the motherboard DID get affected (and damaged in some way), could it additionally fry the HDD at the moment of turning the system back on? (or maybe some time later?)

I'm also pretty terrified to re-plug the laptop at this point (the charger brick could now be malfunctioning, for all I know), so if I'm gonna turn the system back on, I'll probably do it on strictly battery power.

So, my 2 questions here are...

- Can a possibly damaged motherboard additionally damage the HDD afterwards? (for example, by sending the wrong voltage to the HDD, and possibly creating/enabling random voltage spikes that would fry the drive)

- Can a possibly damaged laptop battery damage the HDD? (just the battery, no power brick involved)... again, by maybe outputting the wrong voltage, or possibly creating voltage spikes that would fry the HDD

Excuse me if these are dumb questions, but I'm honestly not very knowledgeable about computers or electronics in general.

In short, would it be rational (and safe) enough to simply turn on the laptop and see if everything is functioning properly, or should I just take the HDD out of the laptop right away, and put it into USB enclosure (and then backup the data), without even trying it out again in a current laptop?

Thank you for any help. I feel pretty paranoid right now (my OCD doesn't help either lol).

There is a lot of electronics between the AC mains plug and the output of the charger. You would need to be extremely unlucky for the lightning strike to have passed through the brick and onto your laptop's electronics. Inside the laptop you have extra levels of protection and additional power supplies between the HDD/SSD and the power source.

Get hold of a multimeter and measure the DC voltage at the output of the charger. If this voltage is OK, then everything is probably OK. If you are worried, remove the HDD/SSD and test it inside an external enclosure. You could also power up the laptop with the HDD/SSD removed. If it POSTS, then it is probably OK.

In short ...

1/ Measure the output voltage of the charger.

2/ Remove the HDD/SSD and power up the laptop. If it POSTS, then it is probably OK.

3/ Install the HDD/SSD inside an external enclosure and check whether it powers up and is seen by the laptop.

4/ Reinstall the HDD/SSD inside the laptop.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.