New Hard-Drie?
Do you think I need a new hard drive? If so, can I retrieve all music, pictures etc from my current hard drive to put on my new one?
Also how much does a new hard drive cost? roughly
Answers:
You're hard drive is probably (although not definitely) not the problem. You will, however, need to re-install windows, which will cause you to loose all the data on your hard drive.
The best thing to do is find someone with a laptop with a spare slot for a second hard drive or a friend with a PC who knows what they are doing and can connect it as a second drive.
By connecting your old drive to another computer, you will be able to backup all of your important data before plugging the drive back into your laptop and installing windows again. Then just use a DVD of USB flash drive to copy your data back to your laptop.
However, if you find your hard drive is dead, a new one will cost about £50. This is a good one:
http://www.ebuyer.com/uk/product/130338...
PS - *never* go to PC world - they are easily the worst rip-off merchants in the business
More likely that the CMOS battery in the laptop has died, if the laptop is 3-5 years old...?
Also check that you have not got a Floppy disk, or CD in the drives, it could be trying to boot from those before booting from the hard disk.!
This could cost just a few quid and a few minutes to replace... or take to PCWorld and they should do it... but would cost a bit more...
It is of course possible that it could be the Hard-drive, this will cost a bit more to fix, depending on the size drive you go for... if you are not sure about it I would Suggest PCWorld again... but if the machine is over 3 years old you would be better off buying a new one as spending money and a large amount of time getting the system set up again is just not going to be worth the hassle...!
You can pick up a pretty good laptop now from Dell for around £300, so why spend circa £100 trying to sort out an old one...??
First check your bios to see that your boot order is correct otherwise you can try using the fixmbr utility in the xp recovery console (this is on the xp disk).
a bit of reading here may save you some headache and cover all of the other possible causes for the error.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321626...
Laptops are not really something that you can upgrade, its too fiddly. you might have to get a new one. In this cas,e a comptuer shop can transfer all your old files onto the new laptop etc.
it's difficult to tell what was going on ur hard disk. first, check in BIOS set up (press DEL or F2 or ... etc depend on ur computer), whether ur hard disk is still detected or not. If it is detected, u still have hope. If detected, use Windows set up CD to repair ur OS or install new windows without formating. After Windows is installed, u will get ur files. If not detected, say goodbye and buy a new hard disk or contact ur ventor.
Sounds like your operating system on your current drive is corrupted. Have you tried switching it on MS DOS mode whilst rebooting the machine? Press F8 whilst the machine is starting and that's gives you an option. Not sure if that will help. No harm in trying. Good Luck!
It may be that your hard drive is recoverable but laptop hard drives are prone to failure so there is no point in, say, re-installing Windows if it is going to fail again a few days later.
A new hard drive would cost in the region of £40. If you have a lot of precious data stored on the old one it might be worthwhile insurance to get a new hard drive.
For less than £10 (plus delivery) you can buy an external housing for your old hard drive with a USB interface that you can plug into any computer. See www.ebuyer.com .
Or you could pay an independent computer professional to do all work for you.
Please, please, please do not reinstall Windows and reformat your entire drive. If the problem is Windows it is probably worth reinstalling "over the top" without reformatting to existing drive.
The explanation for your problem may be very simple however. The disk that the PC is attempting to boot from probably has no operating system (Windows) on it. So remove the floppy, CD, USB drive/stick and restart your laptop.
Ra Horus is talking crap "Laptops are not really something that you can upgrade..." - Rubbish, if there is one thing in a laptop you can upgrade that would certainly be the hard drive.
Alan_B is equally talking crap, laptop hard drive are no less reliable than desktop hard drive, size is the only difference.
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