[ale] OT. Dead harddrive on laptop

[lists at serioustechnology.com (Geoffrey Myers)]

Cornelis van Dijk wrote:
> Hi all,
> Yesterday the harddrive on my 4 year old HP Pavilion died. No
> warranty, extended or otherwise.
> Everything was backed up so that is no problem. Now what? Is this
> thing self-serviceable? Could a shop do it? Send it to HP for repair?
> Or just replace it?
> It happened while I was installing suse 11.2, probably no connection,
> drive would have died anyway. It will still write but cannot read. All
> diagnostics (XP and Linux) tell me that the drive has unrecoverable
> errors.
> Suppose I would plug in my Seagate external usb drive. Could I put an
> OS on that? Would it boot?
> Thanks a lot in advance for any response.

Most laptops (excluding my Macbook pro) provide easy access to the hard 
drive.  In most cases, remove a screw or two and it slides out.

I'd go with replacing the drive yourself.

As for the aforementioned Mac, you have to remove about 25 screws and 
lift the keyboard and hand rest up to get to the drive.  I've replaced 
it once as I wanted more space.  Not for the average user.

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey

"I predict future happiness for America if they can prevent
the government from wasting the labors of the people under
the pretense of taking care of them."
- Thomas Jefferson