How to manually change hard drive and restore my copy of Windows 7

Hello all,

I have come to you guys for assistance with my dilemma right now. So this is my story deeply sorry

About 2 weeks ago my Asus laptop was working fine and in running order but I went to go do my exam one morning and I opened up my laptop and it just wasn't loading. I was worried what was happening just because it couldn't start and wasn't acting as it normally should. The way it was acting was like it had like barely any ram at all. It took a good 20 minutes to get to the login screen and then a little bit more to actually start my computer. Also when I would click something it would take a few minutes to even realize I clicked it. Anywho, after going to the IT department at my school and having no luck there I brought it into my work at Staples and had run a comprehensive diagnostic tool on it that determined that it was one of the hard drives that is dying as it failed the SMART short test. So after backing everything up that I needed to slowly, I removed my primary hard drive manually and replaced it with the second 750 I have in my machine which isn't dying.

From there I put my system repair disc into the machine and changed the boot order so that it starts with the cd, but from there I am unable to restore my computer to factory settings or even load a system image that is presently on the hard drive. What is my next option. I start school again tomorrow and need my computer to at least run. Thank you very much!

TLDR = Primary harddrive died replaced primary with secondary and can't boot or even get anywhere.

Well completely filling in your specs would help. Asus make many laptops. I must say I didn't know they made one with two hard drives inside them.

Sorry Wasn't close to my computer at the time. They are filled in now. It was a 2000 dollar laptop when I got it less than a year ago

If I understand you correctly you removed a hard drive from another computer and installed it into the problem computer. When you installed the other hard drive in the troubled laptop did you do a wipe of the hard drive and clean install of or a Prep install of Windows 7? Don't let the name of the Tutorials mislead you. Please read both of them.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197255-windows-7-installation-prepare-pc-sold.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/135077-windows-7-installation-transfer-new-computer.html

It's hard for me to follow exactly what you have done and what you are wanting to do.

I will read them for sure but ill try to elaborate. My laptop had 2 hard drives when I bought it. Both had 750gb of space. The primary harddrive failed which was my c:\ hard drive. So I removed the primary and put the secondary one in its place. I just need to know what to do to get it running. I'll check out the links you posted. Thank you

Did you make the OEM manufacturer's Recovery Disks?