WTB (or borrow). Extremely cheap Laptop SATA drive

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Forums › Offers and Wanted › WTB (or borrow). Extremely cheap Laptop SATA drive

blakamin

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#81493 13-Apr-2011 18:31

I was given a laptop from a friend in CHCH and it has a broken screen and no HDD as they needed their data.
I just want to make sure it will run through an external monitor and everthing thing else works when it has an OS before I spend any money (want to replace the mrs' PC as it is 8-9 years old.)
I ran a Live ubuntu disc and it turned up on the external monitor but I had no networking so I'd like to have something to install the OS to. (cant see BIOS on the external monitor so I cant boot of external drive or USB key etc)

Size doesn't matter as it will just be a boot drive! If I get it going, I'll just plug in one of my old IDE 250g externals.
Needing to be extremely cheap as we're on a tight budget. :(

freeviewfan

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#458378 13-Apr-2011 19:01

if only you lived in Auckland i have a 40gb one well i think its 40gb i sell to you for $25 just have no clue how to send to you sorry

blakamin

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#458385 13-Apr-2011 19:13

Thanks, but after postage, it would be out of my budget (hence the extremely bit)

I'm in Kapiti and work around the welly region.

freeviewfan

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#458387 13-Apr-2011 19:16

blakamin: Thanks, but after postage, it would be out of my budget (hence the extremely bit)

I'm in Kapiti and work around the welly region.

i could send by air mail witch would would only cost like $1.50

CYaBro

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#458391 13-Apr-2011 19:23

I've got a 250GB WD 7200rpm SATA you can have for the cost of the courier.
I think it was 250GB anyway.
It has SMART errors saying something about reallocated sectors but it is still working fine at the moment.
That will at least give you something to test with. :)

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terryb8s

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#458393 13-Apr-2011 19:24

Why don't you download a ubuntu live CD to test it? that way you don't need a hard drive.

blakamin

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#458396 13-Apr-2011 19:27

CYaBro: I've got a 250GB WD 7200rpm SATA you can have for the cost of the courier.
I think it was 250GB anyway.
It has SMART errors saying something about reallocated sectors but it is still working fine at the moment.
That will at least give you something to test with. :)

PM on its way!

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blakamin

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#458397 13-Apr-2011 19:28

terryb8s: Why don't you download a ubuntu live CD to test it? that way you don't need a hard drive.

Might pay to read the whole bit at the top again

terryb8s

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#458411 13-Apr-2011 19:55

Oh sorry :P CD is obviously not top of the boot priority :(

blakamin

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#458417 13-Apr-2011 20:04

Cd boots, just ubuntu has issues with the networking.

scottjpalmer

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#458488 13-Apr-2011 22:50

If you have no joy I have one you can borrow I think, hit me up via Twitter DM :-)

blakamin

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#459420 16-Apr-2011 15:12

All good, scottjpalmer... I will remember tho ;)

I wanna say an effing HUGE thanks to CYaBro!

You tha MAN!

Drive arrived today and I am typing this from my ubuntu install (that is updating about 3 times!)

I wished I could've installed vista but the external monitor wont switch on until after the OS loads so trying to do it blindly led me to either
a) Stuffed install disc
b) Putting key in wrong place after a series of tabs, spacebars and enters
or
c)the disc might not even be Vista??????

The only thing that sucks about this laptop is that I cant see BIOS on the external monitor like I can on my old HP (that the Mrs is using with no screen)
So now it has an OS, I cant even get it to boot from dvd anymore (the reason for 3 distro updates of ubuntu... shouldnt of started on 9.04 )

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martyyn

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#459501 16-Apr-2011 18:49

The only thing that sucks about this laptop is that I cant see BIOS on the external monitor like I can on my old HP (that the Mrs is using with no screen)
So now it has an OS, I cant even get it to boot from dvd anymore (the reason for 3 distro updates of ubuntu... shouldnt of started on 9.04 )

I had a similar problem when trying to fix a friends laptop. I found if you press the shift-F8 button (or whatever it is to switch to the extrernal monitor) just after booting you would get the BIOS screen on your monitor :)

You have to get it at the right time but it might be worth a try.

blakamin

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#459505 16-Apr-2011 18:52

Yeah, fn-f4, just won't do it. Tried every combo I can think of and hp don't help. Thanks