Solved Laptop hard drive went bad

[asfrye]

The hard drive on my laptop just suddenly stopped working. I can run Ubuntu from a DVD, so CPU and Memory seem okay.

Can I buy a hard drive with Windows 7 on it, and just put it in?
Any idea on ballpark price?

 

[DocBrown]

Welcome asfrye,

Did your laptop come with any recovery Discs ?

What is the make & model of your laptop ? Do you know what Kind Of HD & the size of it in GB's ?

 

[asfrye]

Recovery disks are long lost (years ago).

Dell Compaq Presario CQ60 notebook PC
Manufacturer: Hewlett Packard
Rating: 3.5 (Windows Experience Index
Processor: Pentium Dual-Core CPU T4200 @2.00GHz
Memory (RAM) 3.00 GB
System Type 32-bit Operating System

Hard Drive: WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZT0 ATA Device
(I believe it is around 300 Gig)

 

[TVeblen]

You can't buy a new hard drive with an OS on it, and a used hard drive with an OS on it would not run Windows correctly on your computer.

The typical procedure is to buy a new hard drive, which will be blank, and install a fresh copy of Windows on it.
You will also need to reinstall all of your programs and user data (which we hope you have backed up).

If you don't have a Windows 7 32 bit installation DVD (you probably can't use a 64 bit installation DVD because that PC is older) then you can (legally) borrow one and install Windows by using the COA key that should be on the sticker on the bottom of the laptop. That is your key to one license for Windows 7.

You can also download an ISO of the installation disk from Digital River and burn your own. Again, legal as long as you own a key.

Hope that helps.

 

[asfrye]

Yes, thank you.

That was exactly the information I was looking for.

Thanks again.