[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

Thanks in advance.

[stylin19a]

you should be able to swap out the hard drive.
with XP there are a few catches, but it should work with a laptop.

[Ron in Acreage]

Any local PC shop can do it for a few bucks with a transfer cable and a few clicks. You should be able to plug the laptop into an ordinary monitor also. Of course it will no longer be portable.

[KoRn]

You can hook up a monitor to your laptop and see the display. Look for a VGA port on the back.

Most everything you have saved is likely in C:\Documents and Settings\your username\

This is where your profile on that computer resides, and is likely where all your data is saved, unless you put it somewhere else.

[Petronski]

I've broken the screen on my PC laptop, and since the cost to repair/replace could be at least half the cost of a new laptop, I'm thinking of replacing it.

Good grief! That just happened to me.

[ConservativeMind]

Check eBay for the laptop's screen. You may be surprised, depending on how much your original computer cost. My Dell 1600 x 1200 laptop screen goes for $150.

If you are looking to transfer the contents of your hard drive to a new laptop, there are several ways. However, the most straight-forward way is to set up your programs on the new computer, put the internal hard drive of your broken laptop into an external USB drive assembly (with USB 2.0 cable, about $20 from NewEgg.com), and copy off the data as you need it. There are a few programs that will help selectively move things for you, but none are foolproof. As long as you keep your broken laptop's drive as an external drive, you can always put it back in your old system and have everything be okay if you get it fixed.

In the meantime, you can continue to use your old computer without repairing it with any external VGA monitor. Practically, you could continue for a long time that way, if the portability wasn't needed.

[Cold Heat]

"It's an avaretec."

I have one. I tried putting a HD out of a Dell in it, and it would not work. I'm guessing the reverse would also be a problem.

Data transfer via win-doz requires you to do some things on both the primary and secondary computers. Without the screen, this would be a problem because of a lack of interface. If your files were in a shared file, a wireless link would work, but if not, it would be difficult to change the settings.

I dunno.....The video card may support another aux monitor, but this too requires settings.

You could take the drive to someone who is adept at data retrieval, or find another averatec to put your drive in. The one I have, has a AMD 64, it won't run any other drive, and I doubt it's drive will work on anything else.

The only thing I did not try to do, was exchange drives after the boot up, while it was hot and running. I doubt this will work either.The computer would likely go fritzy....but I never tried it.

[Perseverando]

If considering a new PC, ck out the latest Consumer Reports mag. They just did a review of laptops and desktops. I don't think HP faired too well in the laptop category.

I only scanned the article briefly, and need to read it more closely.

[TChad]

I like Asus laptops. Actually I like pretty much everything I have purchased from Asus, they are a great company with high quality products. It is pronounced ah-seuss', not ay'sus.

As for your data, it might be easiest to remove the old hard drive, attach it to a desktop computer as a second hard drive, then burn your files to DVD-Rs and use that to transfer them to the new computer. That way you have a backup of the files.

[Echo Talon]

IF you want a PC get anything with the Core2Duo processor right now thats is the best... and obviously more memory is better... i'd say 2GB is the minimum that you would want right now.

[Echo Talon]

Take a look at the HP dv9000t laptops(if thats what you want a laptop)

Make sure you customize it to get the Core2Duo(dual core)... 2GB Ram... At least 100GB hard Drive... (check the free upgrade to DVD burner with lightscribe), you can get the blue tooth its only $10 more.. , nicer finish, microphone and webcam is $29... just customize it the way you see fit...

My brother has one very similar to this and loves it but it has the AMD Turion X2(Dual core), he got the web cam and microphone, TV tuner/remote, 2GB Ram, upgraded video card 512MB, WinXP Media Center... 240GB's of hard drive space...

here is a quick link to it here take a look

[Echo Talon]

if you can attach an external monitor to your laptop... i'd just to wal-mart,best buy or newegg.com and get an external hard drive... then just transfer the files that way... the external can also be used on your new laptop(they come in handy)

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

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