A basic, bare minimum desktop. Dell with no write capabilities
I have seen many hard drives fail in the boot sector and still have the data intact. One of my systems has had a drive that failed as a boot drive and have used it for a 2Nd several years now. Some newer desktops use the same connectors as laptop. If this is so you might try putting the laptop drive into the desktop. If it is a failed boot sector problem you get the close to the same errors.