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Thread: Laptop Hard Drive Problems

  1. #1
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    Laptop Hard Drive Problems

    hi,
    I`ve encountered a new and seemingly strange problem. I`ve just got a 2.5" hard drive to put in an old laptop. As the laptop has no cd rom drive i thought i`d install a OS onto the hard drive through one of my old desktops. I`m using a 2.5" to 3.5" ide convertor.
    Ive tried installing Linux and Windows onto it but when ever i try to boot off of the hard drive the computer basically locks up. The BIOS detects the hard drive fine, i`ve checked that the hard drive settings in the BIOS (heads, sectors, etc..) are correct. It go`s past the POST screen and just at the point were it would boot off of the hard drive the computer locks up, It will not even reboot by pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL, I have to use the power button.
    Has anyone else ever encountered this problem?
    Do laptop hard drives work any diffrently?

  2. #2
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    You can't really install an os on one system then move the drive to another unless the motherboards of the two systems had the same chipsets.. that's for newer MS OS's in general.

    You didn't really say what OS you were going to try and use.. if you have win98se, you could just copy the whole win98 directory to the c: drive (from your cdrom).. then boot up with a win98 bootdisk.. change drives to C: (from A:) cd to the win98 folder and type in setup.exe

  3. #3
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    I`m trying to install Windows NT, i`ve never been to keen on the Win 9x series. I dont know about the newer versions of windows but i`ve surcesfully moved a ahrd drive from one computer to another and the OS has booted up ok.
    I just cant figure out why the laptop hard rive will not boot up, NT installer does not bring up any sort of messages when its fofmatting and copying the boot up files to the drive. I`m just trying to figure out if perhaps laptop hard drives boot up any diffrently.

  4. #4
    the hdd of the laptop works exactly the same as a desktop hdd, but like sumdumguy said, the drivers are a problem, so i suggest you try to boot up in save mode and see if it works then...

    but it is very common for windows to give blue screens when you use another laptop ( chipset that is) then the one installed...

    i work at a repaircenter and i've tried that kind of things so many times... we have dozens of different types of notebooks ( all of the same brand though) and it depends on the chipset if the OS works on another notebook as well, this is all besides all the other drivers that will not be the same... isn't it an option to use a usb-cdromdrive?
    then you could install an os from the cd and it would solve all your problems...

    however, you will get other problems: most of the time the drivers for the MOBO-components are pretty hard to find if you want to install another OS on your laptop then the one which is provided with the system when you bought it...

    good luck!

  5. #5
    Right turn Clyde Nokia's Avatar
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    The easiest way would be to buy an external CD-ROM (e-bay) but obviously this is the most expensive way.

    I have had to do this for a few people in the past and i think the way i got round it was to install the o/s but on the last restart that it does (just after it has installed and is about to actually boot into windows for the first time) turn your computer off and dont let it restart.

    Now put the hard drive into your laptop and boot it up, it will now look for all the devices etc attached to it! rather than registering all the stuff in your other computer!

    I think this was how i got round this problem when i done it but it was a few years ago now!

    Hope it helps!

  6. #6
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    I managed to get round this by copying all the installation files to the hard disk then putting it in the laptop and booting off a boot up disk like sumdumguy surgested.
    But i still cant figure out why the laptop hard drive will not boot up off the desktop. As soon as it gets to the part where it would normally boot off the hard disk after the POST information is displayed the computer locks up. It does this on two completely diffrent computers yet when i put it in the laptop it`ll boot off of it with no problems.

  7. #7
    i've seen the boot problem before, the only way we solved this was by doing a lowlevel format, this takes a lot of time (depending on the size of your hdd) but after that, i could just create new partitions with partition magic and install a new OS...
    you can get the tool we use here.

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