need it help laptopt taken for repair confused

surfsister

Hi guys relation took his laptop to be repaired as it just died and they had it 4 weeks and eventually said that the hard drive had died and that for £60 they could clone the drive and put in a new one. they could get his stuff back then.

He brought it home to think about it. Now if the hard disk has died how can they clone it? I know he'll lose his stuff but think it better to buy a replacement. Any thoughts welcome.

thanks

grumpycrab

You need to get the hard drive out of the laptop and then either connect directly to a desktop computer OR buy a cable to connect to any other laptop/desktop like this
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-Adapter-Optimized-EC-SSHD-x/dp/B011M8YACM/
That will tell you how good/bad the hard disk is.

£60 is a good price if this is a NEW drive and is the same size as the old one but yes, this does imply that the current disk is still usable.

NB1. this assumes that the laptop drive is SATA and not the old IDE type - taking the hard disk out will confirm which type it is
NB2. if there is valuable data on the hard disk and there is a problem with the disk, you should seek professional help

were

To be more obvious than grumpycrab.... "NEW DRIVE" ... Is that a drive new, never been used, out of the box? Is that a second hand drive newly introduced to the computer, and it is new to the computer because your computer and you have never seen it before? Newly acquired drive off ebay?

4 weeks to diagnose a drive? Fitting is much harder, you usually have to use a screwdriver, and turn the laptop over - another 4 weeks to fix? However this is a very cheap repair price.

Unless they are using ex-customers broken computers drive, I cant see any money in this job.

Cheapest disk on ebuyer is £41.04 + £6.98 delivery - 500GB. Cheapest SSD is a second hand 60GB £38.40 + p&p extra. Cheapest new ssd is 120Gb for £46.98

All manufacturers give a years warranty on their new goods, get that written on the receipt.

NiftyDigits

Brand name and model number of laptop is a good place to begin.

Then a better description of what happens when the laptop is switched on.

You can likely replace the HDD with a SSD yourself if necessary.Could make a big difference to the prior performance. Doesn't take four weeks to diagnose a faulty HDD.

were

NiftyDigits, laptop it a friend of a friend's. From another post, the op bough an Acer:doh: for £100 from JL, so i'm sure she will be a regular here

surfsister

Hi again thanks for help so far - yes I am a regular here!! I've had so much help here and always post if I find out anything useful.

Well started the laptop up -it is a DEll Latitude 4310 running on Windows 7 or 8 (from memory).
It says Windows failed to start

Then Do you want to start normally

I left it alone and it came up Windows is loading files.

Then loading for ages and a bar going across the bottom of the screen. Then a blank screen.

It just came up with a blue screen with a cloud and a jet vapour trail and a green leaf on one side but nothing else yet...

surfsister

extra info -it was actually £85 plus £20 labour. must have misheard!!

emptybox

That screen is the Windows 7 login screen.
So it is obviously trying to load Windows but failing. So the drive can't be completely dead.

Wouldn't think there'd be much point in cloning it though. As if there's a problem with Windows files being corrupted, then you'd just clone the problem?

However, if they are reputable repairers, then that's probably a fair price to replace the drive and reinstall Windows (provided they don't need to supply Windows 7). Still cheap for labour TBH, but they are making a profit on the cost of a new drive.

If it was me I'd be taking the drive out and connecting it to another computer, to try to get the important data off, before handing it to the repairers. If you don't think you could do the replacement of the drive and reinstallation yourself.

NiftyDigits

surfsister wrote: »

Hi again thanks for help so far - yes I am a regular here!! I've had so much help here and always post if I find out anything useful.

Well started the laptop up -it is a DEll Latitude 4310 running on Windows 7 or 8 (from memory).
It says Windows failed to start

Then Do you want to start normally

I left it alone and it came up Windows is loading files.

Then loading for ages and a bar going across the bottom of the screen. Then a blank screen.

It just came up with a blue screen with a cloud and a jet vapour trail and a green leaf on one side but nothing else yet...

It matters which as may will need to boot from installation media in order to run the repair.
Get the Service Tag of the machine too.

But before you do anything else, remove all peripherals from the laptop and try again. That means anything connected into the laptop.

were

surfsister wrote: »

Hi again thanks for help so far - yes I am a regular here!! I've had so much help here and always post if I find out anything useful.

I can see from your posts you are a regular here. Not exactly what I meant.

Acer historically had a reputation for Laptop build quality, especially bad soldering under CPU and video chips. Also their Laptops with the Nvida chip did not have a good enough heatsink and overheated as they aged, so hopefully you are not a regular for this reason:).... Let you carry on with your friends problems

surfsister

Will have another look when I visit him later today.

Concerning the Acer for £50 and a two year John Lewis guarantee I'll take my chances but thanks for the info!!