Laptop takes a fall. how to fix hdd?

[trae08]

This morning my friend knocked my laptop off the coffee table to the floor. Only a 1 foot drop but thats all it took.

The hard drive no longer works. I turn on the laptop and it says to insert a bootable device.

My question is sense i have no OS cds or anything like that is it possible to download an os from a bit torrent site and copy it to a spare drive i have using my friends desktop and stick that in my computer to get it to work again?

Or how would i go about getting my laptop up and running again? I dont have any blank cd's

 

[detox1]

Have you tried popping the drive out and back in again? for sihts and giggles.

 

[trae08]

yea i even hooked it up to a friends desktop to see if i could get any files off it and it dosnt even spin. like most drives you can feel them spinning but this one dosnt when its plugged up.

 

[zackyb92]

I think your Disk is toast then.. it is *possible* to download a torrented OS, but not at all recommended.. You could download a Distro of linux, for free, legally, but I'm assuming you were wanting windows.. in which case, you're gonna have to buy the disks

 

[Indigo]

Dropping a hard drive, especially while it is in operation (unless it is an SSD) will almost always kill the drive unless it comes with the fall detection ability present in some laptop hard drives. Tough luck.

As for the Windows CD, not entirely correct guys. You CAN get the ISO off of the internet, as long as you own a license key (and most laptops purchased already do on the bottom) so just buy a new hard drive, get the ISO from your source of choosing, and install the OS accordingly. We can't tell you where to go to get the ISO, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

 

[trae08]

Alright thanks. Ive never had to install an os or anything like that. So im unfamiliar with how to do it. I went and got some blank cd-r with 700mb cap. and i have a new hdd. i downloaded windows but im not sure about the iso thing. i was told by someone else to extract it and burn it to the cd and make sure the laptop is booting from the cd drive but the iso file was larger then the capacity of the cd.

I realize how frustrating it can be sometimes to explain stuff to someone who dosnt know what there doing. but if someone could pm me or email me to help me out i would greatly appreciate it. I will be moving in a few days and wont have access to my friends desktop anymore so if i dont get it fixed in a few days then ill be screwed.

email is Trae08@gmail.com

 

[Aastii]

Alright thanks. Ive never had to install an os or anything like that. So im unfamiliar with how to do it. I went and got some blank cd-r with 700mb cap. and i have a new hdd. i downloaded windows but im not sure about the iso thing. i was told by someone else to extract it and burn it to the cd and make sure the laptop is booting from the cd drive but the iso file was larger then the capacity of the cd.

I realize how frustrating it can be sometimes to explain stuff to someone who dosnt know what there doing. but if someone could pm me or email me to help me out i would greatly appreciate it. I will be moving in a few days and wont have access to my friends desktop anymore so if i dont get it fixed in a few days then ill be screwed.

email is Trae08@gmail.com

You want to burn the disc as an image file, do not extract it, else it won't work, you need to burn it as the ISO file.

Also, you will need a DVD. Windows XP will fit on a standard CD (700MB), but for Vista or 7 you need a DVD for the capacity

 

[trae08]

Ok i got it to work. I didnt have any blank dvds so i had to use a blank cd-r with xp.

My question now is sense ive just gone from vista to xp i dont have the drivers for my network card. whats the best way to get them onto the computer sense i cant connect to the internet.

 

[Aastii]

Ok i got it to work. I didnt have any blank dvds so i had to use a blank cd-r with xp.

My question now is sense ive just gone from vista to xp i dont have the drivers for my network card. whats the best way to get them onto the computer sense i cant connect to the internet.

You can obviously get on the net with your computer, so download the drivers from your computer, then put the drivers on a memory stick, cd, whatever, some sort of external storage, and then transfer it to the other computer

 

[trae08]

Ok i really appreciate all your help. I finally got it working the way it should and got all the drivers. But i have one more thing. My speakers dont work. I go to adjust the volume and it says there is no audio device. I went into device manager and checked to make sure all the drivers were up to date for audio but still nothing. Do you know what the issue could be?