Computer/Tech gurus: I need some help with my laptop!

[andrewj]

G1500 and nick, thanks for the suggestions on the drives. I can only take your word on what is a good option for me so I would appreciate if anyone else could back their suggestions.

[whatpain]

I call b.s. if the controller on the board is damaged it will flag a bad hard drive, there is NO way you can "promise that" .. I repair craptops 10-15 times a year(turn away most) a dropped craptop is the worse case, but sometimes you will get lucky

well i call bs on your calling bs. i fixed about 10 or 15 of this specific model last week. he dropped his laptop and theres no external damage and its now giving a hard drive read error. that is 99 times out of 100 just a harddrive replacement. and the 100th time its a loooong drop. and as for the factory restore disks not working that is what any major repair facility is going to use anyway so why would you not use it? all it is is windows with whatever vendor specific software comes with the unit.

[bg]

This HDD. I have a few and they work great.

WD Scorpio Black 250

If you need more storage >

WD Scorpio Black 500

However as mentioned above if the controller is damaged, you
can have the best drive in the world and it still not
light off..

I'd still try a new drive. They're pretty cheap.

[ironcross]

Could always try seatools for DOS. http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/sup...loads/seatools

Just burn it on a cd and run the test. I can only assume it can give a go or no go on if the controller is damaged in theory. If its able to run the test.

Depending on how many G forces the drive took. It would be damaged.

If you have another PC that has SATA try the HD in that?

I also recommend using Western Digital Drives. I've had too many seagate's fail way too soon.

YMMV

[G1500]

Yuck, that's one crappy drive. If you're going to replace your drive anyway, do yourself a favor and buy a decent drive. It's the slowest major component in your system, and the system works as fast as its slowest component. Also, get a drive with full drive encryption, you'll thank me later They're cheap now, anyway. Here's a decent drive with FDE:

http://www.provantage.com/seagate-st9500421as~7SEGS203.htm

I'm one of those people who drop their laptops a lot (I often use laptops in less than ideal conditions). Since I haven't yet seen affordable SSD drives with FDE, I have to use the platter ones (and buy sturdy laptops, of course). I've dropped my current laptop probably 20-30 times by now, and I still use the same drive, the one above. Their G-Force protection works pretty well (if you keep in mind that it's still a platter drive).

Guy wants something cheap that'l work. Of course, I wouldn't buy that drive, but it is cheap, decent size for a laptop, and 5.4k RPM so its not a Velociraptor, but it will help with battery life and work fine. There are cheaper drives, I just picked a random drive for under 50 bucks.

No need for a powerhouse laptop in my opinion, that's what desktops are for. My desktop has 2 SSDs in a RAID 0 for the boot drive and 4TB RAID 1 for storage, all driven from a 4.2 Ghz i7.

i have to disagree, unless you are a power user ,the restore disks will have all the drivers you will need , Toshiba has been known to use proprietary hardware and drivers.. i have a toshiba 5105 (top end craptop when new) sitting next to my desk with a bad vid card (geforce 440go propitiatory,bios will not recognize any other card i have even tried to hack the bios its a nogo )that was ONLY used in the Toshiba's and proprietary drivers ... just my 2 cents ....

I would never recommend anyone to ever use the recovery discs. First thing to do to a computer when you buy it is wipe the HDD and install fresh. If the computer is new enough for Windows 7, it will have all the drivers. If not, it will run and he can manually install the drivers if needed. You never know what kinda crap they add onto your computer. BTW, you can always download drivers from the manufacturers website. Just my 2 cents

On another note, Don't buy a Toshiba in the future. Just my 2 cents.

[G1500]

and as for the factory restore disks not working that is what any major repair facility is going to use anyway so why would you not use it? all it is is windows with whatever vendor specific software comes with the unit.

Vendor specific software = Crapware

Wastes space, resources and slows down the machine.

[xmustanguyx]

Vendor specific software = Crapware

Wastes space, resources and slows down the machine.

Agreed. My friends think I'm crazy when I get a new laptop and wipe it clean before using it. Recovery partition and all. It's just a waste of space.

Additionally, find an XPSP2 disc if you really want some performance out of it. Yeah there's some issues with not having SP3 but I always recommend SP2 for slower laptops. Anyone else do the same or am I the only one?

[G1500]

Agreed. My friends think I'm crazy when I get a new laptop and wipe it clean before using it. Recovery partition and all. It's just a waste of space.

Additionally, find an XPSP2 disc if you really want some performance out of it. Yeah there's some issues with not having SP3 but I always recommend SP2 for slower laptops. Anyone else do the same or am I the only one?

You are the only one. Been a Windows 7 user since the Beta leaked.

[JDay]

Laptop drives are very easy to replace. Remove 1-2 screws and a cover on the bottom, maybe 1 more screw to slide the drive out, remove drive from it's cage, insert new drive in case, slide drive back in, replace cover. Takes less than 5 minutes to do this.

[KALIDAWG8996]

One of my favorite places to check out which is Calif. local and with great prices is www.computergeeks.com WHICH is close to Camp Pendleton down in Oceanside. They have a Will Call if you're ever down near there. Stop by there sometime...and have plenty of cash as you won't leave empty handed

[JDay]

Yuck, that's one crappy drive. If you're going to replace your drive anyway, do yourself a favor and buy a decent drive.

There is nothing wrong with WD drives, they are top of the line. Most 5400 RPM laptop drives also perform close to 7200 RPM desktop drives thanks to using perpendicular recording. If you want speed spend the extra on an SSD. I just picked one of these up at Fry's for $184.99 after rebate, their pre-rebate price is even $15 less than at Newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233125

[MikeH1]

Drives are easy to replace.

Don't use the factory disc, find the same OS you have a key for, and do a fresh install of the OS. You should NEVER use the factory disc.

the factory disks have the device drivers that you will need for the laptop, I have used factory disks numerous times to re-install systems, never seen a problem in 15+ years.

[G1500]

the factory disks have the device drivers that you will need for the laptop,

Not alwys. Unless you hve something that is brand new, your OS will most likely have the drivers preinstalled, or will be able to automtically DL them then you run the first update.

[JDay]

Not alwys. Unless you hve something that is brand new, your OS will most likely have the drivers preinstalled, or will be able to automtically DL them then you run the first update.

Quite a few OEM systems use slightly modified hardware these days, which in turn requires their custom drivers to work properly.

[andrewj]

got an update for you guys

This past weekend, I had a local computer dude run some diagnostics on my laptop and he verified that everything seemed to be in working order (except for the hard drive, of course). He said that a new drive should be the fix.

So I went down to best buy and picked up a WD drive. I installed it, ran all the recovery software, and now everything is fine and dandy, so to speak.