Beginner Gal attempting to resurrect the dead xD

[SinfulxD]

Okay so the family laptop battery died. After ordering a new one i figured NBD I'll just pull out my ancient PC from the hall closet. Initially upon turning it on a series of beeps (6) came. I googled the beeps (naturally) and came across the advice that perhaps dust had gotten to the processor and it needed to be cleaned. I grounded the PC, ejected the battery and began the disgusting task of cleaning dust bunnies from my poor computer. after replacing wires and battery i turned on PC. Now it was complaining of no drive being found. went into Bios and saw that my IDE and Sata drive were not present. After fiddling with these settings for an hour I got the bright idea to switch out the old harddrive and replace it with my Toshiba one from the laptop. now im stuck 🙁 It boots and goes to utility setup. I choose the recommended ''start up recovery'' and it states that the system cannot be automatically recovered. I'm so bummed that i couldn't figure this out and I'm the most tech savvy person in the house. Anyone has any ideas how this could possibly be fixed? I'm determined to at least try or is it garbage for Ye Olde Computer? Many thanks in advance

 

[yoji]

you cant put an old HDD into another computer and expect it to work... it might... but don't expect it.
When you install windows it loads the drivers for the motherboard etc..
You shove it into and new comp.. with completely different mobo chipset etc then it cant work.. and it cant load windows enough to get to a state where it can plug'n'play the new drivers it needs.

SO if HDD dead on your old comp.. you may need put in a new one... and reinstatl windows (sticker with key stil on old comp?)...

HTH
Cheers

 

[SinfulxD]

you cant put an old HDD into another computer and expect it to work... it might... but don't expect it.
When you install windows it loads the drivers for the motherboard etc..
You shove it into and new comp.. with completely different mobo chipset etc then it cant work.. and it cant load windows enough to get to a state where it can plug'n'play the new drivers it needs.

SO if HDD dead on your old comp.. you may need put in a new one... and reinstatl windows (sticker with key stil on old comp?)...

HTH
Cheers

Hey,

I actually put the fairly new HDD in the horribly old PC. I'm not sure that matters lol. The old HDD stated Sata and IDE were not present. The new HDD states SATA is still not present. This is a mess but hopefully you or someone else can help me lol. Thanks for the quick reply

 

[littleleo]

I'm not sure I understand all that happened. You had a Notebook and the battery in it died. Why didn't you just run if off the AC Adapter? Did you try to buy a new Battery? Then you dug out your old computer and turned it on and got a 6-beep beep code. You then took apart and cleaned the computer. What type of computer is this a Decktop PC or another Laptop? When you tried to start it again it gave you a boot drive error. Did you check the connections to the hard drive? If the system is really old the cables might be brittle and when you pulled of the cables they could have developed small breaks. Then you put the Laptop hard drive in your old computer and turned it on and got a error. The Laptop hard drives probably has a restore partition. Do you have the motherboard disk for the old computer that has the drivers for it? I would by a new hard drive for your old computer, or a new battery for your laptop or both. Hopefully you haven't damaged the notebook hard drive. Put the new hard drive in the old computer and do a windows install hopefully you have a Windows disk. If not you can buy and OEM Windows Home version for under $100. Install windows, and update drivers and O/S repeat as needed. If all else fails take the machines to your local computer store. Good luck!

 

[SinfulxD]

I'm not sure I understand all that happened. You had a Notebook and the battery in it died. Why didn't you just run if off the AC Adapter? Did you try to buy a new Battery? Then you dug out your old computer and turned it on and got a 6-beep beep code. You then took apart and cleaned the computer. What type of computer is this a Decktop PC or another Laptop? When you tried to start it again it gave you a boot drive error. Did you check the connections to the hard drive? If the system is really old the cables might be brittle and when you pulled of the cables they could have developed small breaks. Then you put the Laptop hard drive in your old computer and turned it on and got a error. The Laptop hard drives probably has a restore partition. Do you have the motherboard disk for the old computer that has the drivers for it? I would by a new hard drive for your old computer, or a new battery for your laptop or both. Hopefully you haven't damaged the notebook hard drive. Put the new hard drive in the old computer and do a windows install hopefully you have a Windows disk. If not you can buy and OEM Windows Home version for under $100. Install windows, and update drivers and O/S repeat as needed. If all else fails take the machines to your local computer store. Good luck!

I had a netbook with a dead battery. I then put that HD in my ancient comp. Is this not possible? If it is then how do I go about doing so.

 

[g-unit1111]

you cant put an old HDD into another computer and expect it to work... it might... but don't expect it.
When you install windows it loads the drivers for the motherboard etc..
You shove it into and new comp.. with completely different mobo chipset etc then it cant work.. and it cant load windows enough to get to a state where it can plug'n'play the new drivers it needs.

SO if HDD dead on your old comp.. you may need put in a new one... and reinstatl windows (sticker with key stil on old comp?)...

HTH
Cheers

Not true at all, you can get an external HDD enclosure with a USB hookup. I've resurrected several hard drives out of old computers that way.

 

[yoji]

Not true at all, you can get an external HDD enclosure with a USB hookup. I've resurrected several hard drives out of old computers that way.

OP was talking about a system drive.. so take a system drive out of one machine and put it in a different one and expect it to boot to windows ... Like I said.. it might.. but don't expect it.

We not talking about just getting access to a HDD...

Which bit is "not true at all"?
Cheers

 

[littleleo]

I'm not sure I understand all that happened. You had a Notebook and the battery in it died. Why didn't you just run if off the AC Adapter? Did you try to buy a new Battery? Then you dug out your old computer and turned it on and got a 6-beep beep code. You then took apart and cleaned the computer. What type of computer is this a Decktop PC or another Laptop? When you tried to start it again it gave you a boot drive error. Did you check the connections to the hard drive? If the system is really old the cables might be brittle and when you pulled of the cables they could have developed small breaks. Then you put the Laptop hard drive in your old computer and turned it on and got a error. The Laptop hard drives probably has a restore partition. Do you have the motherboard disk for the old computer that has the drivers for it? I would by a new hard drive for your old computer, or a new battery for your laptop or both. Hopefully you haven't damaged the notebook hard drive. Put the new hard drive in the old computer and do a windows install hopefully you have a Windows disk. If not you can buy and OEM Windows Home version for under $100. Install windows, and update drivers and O/S repeat as needed. If all else fails take the machines to your local computer store. Good luck!

I had a netbook with a dead battery. I then put that HD in my ancient comp. Is this not possible? If it is then how do I go about doing so.

If both use sata you probably can but you'd need to reformat the drive and do a fresh Windows install. Do you have a uninstalled copy of Windows you can use? That would make the drive unusable for the notebook. Can't you just purchase a new notebook battery or just run the notebook off the AC adapter? Then you can probably do a restore on the notebook and get it working.