Hi all, signed up to try and get some info on getting a dead laptop back to life for my brother-in-law. Good advise so far.

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Welcome to TS, but why would you want a dead laptop?

getting a dead laptop back to life

He wants to fix the laptop, not buy a broken one ;)

Dead laptops are all the rage in my college town. We all sit at starbucks being pretentious while talking pretending to work on our laptops. We prefer dead Macs of course, to better fool the regulars.

Since the first posting I've had some success in bringing the laptop back to live.

The "dead" laptop is a Dell Latitude C500/600 that he couldn't get past the BIOS password. I've read much of the postings on that issue and didn't want to feel like a criminal by saying that this was the problem. He got the laptop legitimately as a sell off from his employer but forgot the password. I didn't fancy stripping the laptop down to do the shorting method so I simply tried combinations of what he could remember of the password and hey presto I've got past that obstacle and now the problem is a dying hard disk (sounds rough).

Moral of the story is that most of the cases of people trying to bypass the BIOS password may have come into possession of the machine by ill gotten ways but there are one or two of us that have genuine reasons.

So now the questions is if the hard disk is on its last legs, where can I purchase a new one and how much do they cost?

you can buy one just about anywhere. just make sure you know what kind of connector it has, and you can find an appropriate one.

newegg.com offers fairly low prices. but it's good to shop around. check out bestbuy.com, amazon.com, tigerdirect.com, everywhere, and find the best price once you've picked one out.

Hard drive prices vary by the amount of memory you want but a small drive is fairly cheap, e.g. 40/80GB. You could get a 250GB laptop hard drive if you really wanted to ;)

Remember, laptop hard drives are usually listed as 2.5" and desktop are 3.5" so make sure you get a 2.5" one, otherwise you'll be using a hammer and a crowbar to get it in ;)

Hi all, signed up to try and get some info on getting a dead laptop back to life for my brother-in-law. Good advise so far.
Welcome to techspot. Post this problem of yours in the mobile computing section, where you should get more help ;)

Welcome to techspot. Post this problem of yours in the mobile computing section, where you should get more help ;)

Thanks, I think I'm sorted. I gleaned much info before I did the intro. Now all my brother-in-law needs to decide if its worth buying a hard disk or taking the extra hit and buying a new (higher spec) laptop.

Any more problems and I will post in the relevant section.

Thanks again.

If the PC is good enough for what he wants to do with it, I'd say get a new drive and save the money.

Thanks, I think I'm sorted. I gleaned much info before I did the intro. Now all my brother-in-law needs to decide if its worth buying a hard disk or taking the extra hit and buying a new (higher spec) laptop.

Any more problems and I will post in the relevant section.

Thanks again.
Does he need a higher spec laptop?? If he does, then he can buy one but if he doesnt then he can save some money ;)