u/Final_Affect2167

I have a very old hp laptop, it still powers on but the screen has been black for years. I’ve tried connecting it to an external monitor but that still didn’t work for some reason.
My main question, and all I want is to be able to transfer everything on the computer to an external hard drive and then junk the laptop.
What are my options? Who can I feel safe bringing it to?? As in does it sound like an easy fix that any computer repair place can help with?
Because I’m super paranoid about losing (if I haven’t already 😢) everything on there, it’s sentimental.

This issue is on an old 2011 MacBook Pro and apologies from the start that my technical knowledge and vocabulary is limited 🥴
I’ve seemed to have lost access to a bunch of old photos! There used to be two photo libraries that I could switch between that stored different photos, but one day it just disappeared and I could only search and find one photo library and all the other photos are gone, I didn’t ever delete or merge anything so I don’t know how it happened.

What are my options?
What kind of expert would I take it to that could help me uncover all the photos on the computer? Or are they actually gone? 😢