Computer Geeks - Please Help!

[FergieTCat]

I have a question for the Computer Geeks of the boards.

My laptop died last night. It turns on but will not load. I don't know why -- maybe it's the computer, maybe it's the hard drive.

I have an old lap top with a dead hard drive. Would I cause irreparable harm if I took the hard drive out of the dead laptop and put it into the lap top with the dead harddrive?

(If I may congratulate myself here. My laptop was acting funny on Saturday, so I backed up all the files on a portable hard drive. Yes, I finally managed to listen to my hunches.)

 

[phoenx79]

Before trying swap drives, check to make sure that your RAM chips are seated correctly (there should be a slot on the bottom of the computer that unscrews and you can check). They can come out a little and make it so the computer won't boot.

If you have the OS installation disk, try running that first. There are normally options to repair an install if it is possibly bad.

If that stuff doesn't work, as long as the hard drives are the same size and format, there should not be a problem with swapping them. And as long as you have the software to reload your OS on the old drive it should work.

Good luck and I hope it works out for you.