Who knows a lot about building computers? Have a laptop with no hard drive

KingofNicotine · Jul 29, 2014

I bought it for $18 at the county store.

It's looks to be from 2002 and has the Windows XP logo. I get home to try it on and it has no hard drive. How do I go about finding a HD that would be compatible with this? I got no idea how to do this.

dirtymoose · Jul 29, 2014

King,

Post more details if you can. Maybe a picture of it.
I'm not much a computer building guy. But I think a laptop that's 12 years old is not worth restoring or adding parts to.

KingofNicotine · Jul 29, 2014

I kinda agree too. Let me take a few pictures. Sometimes at the county store you can get something good but most of the times it's just junk.

KingofNicotine · Jul 29, 2014

Which one of those slots would contain the HD?

GoBlue34 · Jul 29, 2014

I wouldn't bother. I've actually had that exact laptop and it's so old you won't be happy at all.

GoBlue34 · Jul 29, 2014

Does it say no hard drive or no OS? (Operating system)

KingofNicotine · Jul 29, 2014

I called the place and they told me all the hard drives are removed. Why I got no idea. They're selling this old piece of shit for $18 and no HD? I'll just take it as an $18 loss.

It says media test failure and then operating system not found.

Goblue, how old is this laptop? I just wanted it for MS office but it but not even be powerful enough to run that.

EveryGamblersDream · Jul 29, 2014

Save yourself the trouble & toss it as getting a HD will cost more than $18. Plus the computer is so out of date, it would hardly run much of anything decently.

KingofNicotine · Jul 29, 2014

Yeah, I'm tossing it out. This thing is an old looking piece of junk. I could get a cheap used HD on craigslist but even then the computer is probably so old it won't run anything from today. It still has a phone jack in the back from the old 56k modem days. There's even a floppy drive. Haven't seen those in ages.

scottcarter · Jul 29, 2014

KingofNicotine said:
I bought it for $18 at the county store.

It's looks to be from 2002 and has the Windows XP logo. I get home to try it on and it has no hard drive. How do I go about finding a HD that would be compatible with this? I got no idea how to do this.

it's only $18 so you don't have to feel shitting about what you need to do. And we all know what needs to be done.

dirtymoose · Jul 29, 2014

You can't have an operating system with out an HD. So now you have to buy the HD and an operative system.

PatsFan1283 · Jul 29, 2014

laptop is the last thing you should try to skimp on. A really good one is cheaper than ever.

EveryGamblersDream · Jul 29, 2014

dirty moose said:
You can't have an operating system with out an HD. So now you have to buy the HD and an operative system.

Technically he would only need to buy the HD as you can download the OS from many places.

NickPappagiorgio · Jul 29, 2014

EveryGamblersDream said:
Technically he would only need to buy the HD as you can download the OS from many places.

Wouldnt you need an OS to get onto the internet to download another OS?

Sorry if that makes no sense

GoBlue34 · Jul 29, 2014

KON - Probably 2003 or so. That laptop got really hot on your lap too, was a real POS. I bet the battery doesn't work either so you would use it like a really bad desktop. Good luck finding a cheap working battery for it. Throw it away.

NickPappagiorgio said:
Wouldnt you need an OS to get onto the internet to download another OS?

Sorry if that makes no sense

You could download the OS from another computer, burn it to a CD, insert, install, etc....

KingofNicotine · Jul 29, 2014

Let me ask you something. In theory if I got a cheap HD could this run MS office 2010?

I already have a laptop that was $600 but I was gonna use this one for work only where I only need Excel.

EveryGamblersDream · Jul 29, 2014

NickPappagiorgio said:
Wouldnt you need an OS to get onto the internet to download another OS?

Sorry if that makes no sense

It makes sense

I assumed since he has access to another computer & can easily download it. I've downloaded every program I have ever needed.

EveryGamblersDream · Jul 29, 2014

KingofNicotine said:
Let me ask you something. In theory if I got a cheap HD could this run MS office 2010?

I already have a laptop that was $600 but I was gonna use this one for work only where I only need Excel.

Yes, it would be able to in theory albeit not recommended. However I doubt it would be worth the hassle as a previous poster mentioned, the battery is probably useless & it would run just about any current program slow or barely at a decent enough speed to really want to deal with it.

May I ask why can't you use Excel on your current laptop?

KingofNicotine · Jul 29, 2014

I do. My current laptop is only a couple of years old. It's great. I'm not gonna bother will probably toss it or try to return it tomorrow and get something else.