Replacing laptop hard drive to unbrick it?

[umakemebetter]

i screwed up the bootloader on my laptop. its supposedto load GRUB (the linux bootloader) and then open linux, but i accidentally deleted linux (dont ask how) but its gone, and now i'm stuck.. (Error 17)

this laptop has no USB-bootability, no network installation compatiblity, no CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, absolutely nothing.

my question is IS THE BOOTLOADER part of the hard drive, or the bios? (cuz if its part of the bios, im screwed forever, but if its the hard drive, i could just take it out, reformat it somehow, put it in my DESKTOP, install linux on it and set up the booting and such, then put it back in the laptop and it'd work, right?)

 

[wmorri]

What type of laptop to u have that hs not usb, network, cd, or dvd? Does it even have a floppy drive?

GRUB is a program that is part of the Linux install. It is installed along with the kernel and everything else. You can get it as a stand-alone program if you want. http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/. Then you can download it and burn it to a cd or something, if you were interested.

To answer your question GRUB gets installed on your hdd. It isn't part of your bios or anything.

You could try taking out the hdd, and then connecting it to your desktop. Then reinstalling Linux back on to it. That is a deffinite possibility.

Cheers!

 

[umakemebetter]

thx, just ordered my 2.5" ATA to 3.5" IDE connector off newegg now. i'm gonna take one of my old desktops and install linux on it and all the software it needs, THEN take it and put it in the lappy.