Hi people,
Recently dropped my laptop, few years old and out of warrenty. The message that appears on screen is “Internal hard disk drive not found. To resolve this issue, try to re-seat the drive” …
Anyone know if this is a expensive issue to resolve? Was going to get rid of it on magpie or something, but someone suggested just getting it fixed
Thanks
If you dropped it… it could have internal damage that cannot be fixed by re-seating it. Though you could give that a try first… re-seating is really easy in most laptops… Depends which model you have, you should be able to find the instructions online on how to do it… just a small screwdriver needed in most cases… The drive may be damaged though so you may have to replace it… may not be worth it if it’s an older laptop…
Example of how to do it:
Thanks for the advice 
used the link you posted and found a video for the exact laptop, I opened her up and took it out and put it back again… Still saying the same thing.
If I was to get a new hard drive, How would I know which one is suitable? Would I just eBay the laptop is Inspiron 5030 hard drive, or is there a part number or serial number needed?
Thanks again 
Inspiron 5030 would take a SATA-300 (or SATA 3.0 Gb/s) drives… just about any laptop hard drive on the market today would work… Just make sure you get the right form factor (I believe yours is 2.5" standard laptop hard drive)
Ok, after my last post I ebayed the laptop and up popped a number of hard drives, described as suitable for my particular model… At around £30-£50, which is a hell of a lot cheaper than I was expecting, so I will be giving it a bash soon, if it doesn’t work - fine, as I’ve learned a thing or two in the process… If it does work… CHA-CHING!!!
thanks again mate 
G6Bob:
Ok, after my last post I ebayed the laptop and up popped a number of hard drives, described as suitable for my particular model… At around £30-£50, which is a hell of a lot cheaper than I was expecting, so I will be giving it a bash soon, if it doesn’t work - fine, as I’ve learned a thing or two in the process… If it does work… CHA-CHING!!!thanks again mate
do you have a copy of windows or what ever operating system your going to use ■■
nick2008:
G6Bob:
Ok, after my last post I ebayed the laptop and up popped a number of hard drives, described as suitable for my particular model… At around £30-£50, which is a hell of a lot cheaper than I was expecting, so I will be giving it a bash soon, if it doesn’t work - fine, as I’ve learned a thing or two in the process… If it does work… CHA-CHING!!!thanks again mate
do you have a copy of windows or what ever operating system your going to use ■■
If not you can download them here
w7forums.com/threads/officia … ads.12325/
It’s perfectly legal as long as your computer has the windows license sticker with the product key on it. If you can’t find it some laptop makers hide it under the battery. It will tell you want edition your licensed for (probably home premium) on the sticker. You want the 64bit version.
You can then either copy the ISO onto a DVD, you will need to use your DVD burning software’s burn ISO image to disk option. Or use a 4GB or bigger USB stick and this.
microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.
EDIT: Also bare in mind there are two sorts of hard drives, and they are fundamentally very different. Traditional hard drives have a spinning disk inside. You will often see either 5400rpm or 7200rpm quoted. Generally the faster the better.
Solid State drives use the same tech as camera memory cards, they are faster then traditional hard drives but cost more (especially if you want one with a large capacity). It’s not unusual to see 30 and 60gb SSDs for sale, these aren’t really big enough you need at least 120gb.
I would recommend an SSD if you only use the laptop for basics like internet and office type stuff. If you’re storing lots of things like games, movies and photos then you probably want a larger traditional hard drive.
KCLeblanc:
nick2008:
G6Bob:
Ok, after my last post I ebayed the laptop and up popped a number of hard drives, described as suitable for my particular model… At around £30-£50, which is a hell of a lot cheaper than I was expecting, so I will be giving it a bash soon, if it doesn’t work - fine, as I’ve learned a thing or two in the process… If it does work… CHA-CHING!!!thanks again mate
do you have a copy of windows or what ever operating system your going to use ■■
If not you can download them here
w7forums.com/threads/officia … ads.12325/
It’s perfectly legal as long as your computer has the windows license sticker with the product key on it. If you can’t find it some laptop makers hide it under the battery. It will tell you want edition your licensed for (probably home premium) on the sticker. You want the 64bit version.
You can then either copy the ISO onto a DVD, you will need to use your DVD burning software’s burn ISO image to disk option. Or use a 4GB or bigger USB stick and this.
microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.
EDIT: Also bare in mind there are two sorts of hard drives, and they are fundamentally very different. Traditional hard drives have a spinning disk inside. You will often see either 5400rpm or 7200rpm quoted. Generally the faster the better.
Solid State drives use the same tech as camera memory cards, they are faster then traditional hard drives but cost more (especially if you want one with a large capacity). It’s not unusual to see 30 and 60gb SSDs for sale, these aren’t really big enough you need at least 120gb.
I would recommend an SSD if you only use the laptop for basics like internet and office type stuff. If you’re storing lots of things like games, movies and photos then you probably want a larger traditional hard drive.
That’s good …the only prob I got is my product key sticker has been badly worn away 
nick2008:
G6Bob:
Ok, after my last post I ebayed the laptop and up popped a number of hard drives, described as suitable for my particular model… At around £30-£50, which is a hell of a lot cheaper than I was expecting, so I will be giving it a bash soon, if it doesn’t work - fine, as I’ve learned a thing or two in the process… If it does work… CHA-CHING!!!thanks again mate
do you have a copy of windows or what ever operating system your going to use ■■
Yes, last time Dell came out they left a flash drive with windows 7 on it