what's wrong with my notebook?!

OscarTheTitan

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May 28, 2013
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Hey there. My Dell Inspiron notebook is acting up. I turn it on and nothing appears on the screen and after a few seconds 4 beeps can be heard. It was working perfectly fine last night and now it's not. My friend said to try taking out the RAM and putting it back in again. I did that to no avail. It's my school laptop and I can't get it repaired until I go back on 29th January. But I need to print off some documents that are on the laptop before I have to go back to school. So is there anything I can do?
 
Solution
Most stores with an electronics section (office supply stores, etc) should have one of these adapters available.

This particular one is available at Best Buy, but you should be able to find other ones that would work.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/drivewire-universal-hard-drive-adapter/1004959.p?id=1218207307519&skuId=1004959&st=categoryid$abcat0515013&cp=4&lp=23#

Good luck getting your laptop fixed!

Casey

cklaubur

Distinguished
Oct 4, 2006
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18,710
It's hard to determine the problem without knowing the model number, but usually if a computer is beeping, there is a hardware problem.

As for accessing the documents you need to print, you have a couple of options. You can use an adapter to connect the laptop's hard drive to another computer by USB, or if you have access to a desktop computer you can open, you can plug the laptop hard drive directly into an extra SATA port, assuming your laptop is new enough to use a SATA hard drive (most laptops recently made use a SATA drive. My Latitude D830 does.).

Personally, I'd use the adapter. You won't need to open the other computer you are using to do so, just the laptop in order to remove the drive.

Casey
 

OscarTheTitan

Honorable
May 28, 2013
12
0
10,560


where could I find one of these adapters? link?
 

cklaubur

Distinguished
Oct 4, 2006
150
0
18,710
Most stores with an electronics section (office supply stores, etc) should have one of these adapters available.

This particular one is available at Best Buy, but you should be able to find other ones that would work.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/drivewire-universal-hard-drive-adapter/1004959.p?id=1218207307519&skuId=1004959&st=categoryid$abcat0515013&cp=4&lp=23#

Good luck getting your laptop fixed!

Casey
 
Solution