Replacing hard drive in a laptop

carlbhoy

Hi all,a friend of mind has dropped his laptop, and now it does not switch on,having searched the internet and tried a couple of suggestions (to no avail). From what I can make out it has seen it last days ( being about 6 years old), unfortunately he has lots of old photographs on there which are priceless to him, now the question is I also have an old laptop which just sits in the cupboard, I wondered could I replace the hard drive from my laptop with the one from my friends. Would it run ok with the different configurations, if it does would it also improve my old one if I exchanged the RAM,.
The two laptops in question are, mine is a HP Pavillion Zt1172, and my friends is a MSI cr630 anyone's help would be greatly appreciated thanks

bsod

first question is what does doesn't switch on mean, it may be that the hard disk is ok, in which case the data can be recovered using a usb caddy.

Unless the hardware of your laptop is very similar, their hard disk is very unlikely to boot in yours wihout reinstalling windows, you also need to make sure the disk interface is the same.

tavernman

If he dropped it whilst it was powered on it is more than likely that the disk is burgered. However create a linux live usb or cd and see if you can see anything from his disk. But as bsod says what do you mean by won't switch on ?

enfield_freddy

you need to access (by make model) if the broken laptop has a ide or a sata drive , you can buy caddy,s to hold both types from the likes of amazon (£10-15) those can then be plugged into your desktop/laptop , via usb , and you can then browse/copy files that you need.


can you come back with a make / model of the broken laptop?

cookie365

If it won't even switch on, it's something more fundamental than the hard disk that's broken.

carlbhoy

When I say it won't switch on, he ran the battery down and although the power is on the battery does not charge and so when the electric is turned on and I press the on off button nothing happens, sorry for my ignorance but what is a USB caddy, and if the machine does not boot is it ant good?, the broken laptop is a MSI CR 630', and my mate is a retired guy who fell asleep in the chair and knocked it off the coffee table whilst snoozing with his legs kicking the table! Oh dear, and I'm just trying to help get his photo's back

tavernman

A caddy is an external enclosure which would allow the disk to be accessed via usb on another pc e.g. yours
Here is a sample http://www.amazon.co.uk/SATA-USB-External-Enclosure-Caddy/dp/B001EL0SQ0

carlbhoy

would it be any good if I'm unable to get it to boot up? or do I take the hardrive out of the laptop and insert it in this caddy? and then plug the usb in my computer?

bsod

possibly
yes
yes

the "he ran the battery down" comment suggests that it worked for a while after the accident ? if so, he may have just damaged the power connection, do any lights come on if you keep pressing the power button down for a few seconds. Try powering up with no battery installed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqPH-N1t_W8

grumpycrab

In order:- possibly (depends whether disk broken or not but worth a try for £5); yes; yes.

carlbhoy

no lights come on at all when I plug into the electric