LeeMac

iTrader: (1)

Might be cheaper and easier to get an external CD Rom drive, as for the hard drive you should be able to get one cheap enough but you will need a 2.5 inch drive, have a mooch in the Loot.

Hang on, just seen where your from so the Loot might not be best place.

[Edited by LeeMac - 8/4/2002 11:09:41 PM]

mrlegacy69

Hi guys/gals first time post in this section(not to many elsewhere but always read most threads). Two questions firstly are the components from different laptops hugely different or is there some sort of industry standards. This is because my cd-rom drive has broken and with most things these days it tends to be cheaper to replace than repair, so was wondering about availability of a new drive? Secondly my hard drive has developed a problem. It makes a loud ticking noise and seems to freeze for short periods. I tried a defrag wouldnt finish because of error and said to run scandisk. Did this but it just freezes on 6% and keeps making the ticking noise. The laptop is an old acer extensa 390 running 98.(I know, something newer is needed, will be building a desktop at xmas when i can earn some cash after the end of the varsity year. Hopefully amd 1900xp etc)

This was a freebee so am not to worried but would like to get sorted as I have to use it for varsity and internet and its a bit of a p**s off
Any ideas, hints etc much appreciated!

suba

welcome to this section.

you can opt for a usb or pc card type cdrom drive. as for your HDD, do a ctrl-alt-del and end task just about everything except systray and explorer (i think), then run scandisk again. if the HDD is on it's way out, better do your backup! replacing notebook HDD is pretty easy and straight forward as you can just get any generic notebook HDD.

mrlegacy69

cheers suba looks like I need to go shopping then!

towzer

you need to be a bit more careful when moving laptop components between different manufacturers machines. An overall laptop design is based around two factors:

1. available space
2. heat disipation

These factors mean you will have to move certain components around within the chasis and fit adapters to things like disk drives. If you are able to keep the original disk drive housing, then you should be Ok to put a new drive into the old housing.

Phil

suba

waikato!

mrlegacy69

Cheers for the advice lads. I am going to hit up my girlfriends dad for a freebee as he is in IT at a rather large bank on this side of the world. Apparently they have loads of old laptops lying around so will see if there is something compatible.May just buy a external cd burner and kill two birds with one stone.