Notebook/Laptop Hard Drives

[sgtspector]

Just bought a new drive for an old Dell Laptop (Inspiron 2600) to replace the 20gb one in there. Just noticed no power connector, just the ide connector? Is there no separate power connector on the drive?

[glc]

Correct. Count the pins, there's more than 40.

39 for IDE, 2 for power, and 6 for jumpers.

[sgtspector]

Thanx. One more thing, to your knowledge are the jumpers smaller than they are for 3.5 hdd's?

[thefultonhow]

No, the jumpers are the same, but you don't want to use them when the drive is in a laptop. They are only for when you connect the drive internally in a desktop for diagnostic purposes and have to use it as a slave.

[glc]

The jumpers are smaller.

[sgtspector]

That's what I thought. I cant get the Ide-to-USB adapter on with the standard jumper pin in place and I get no access without the jumper. I know I wont need to jumper the drive in the laptop but I want to copy the Image I made over to the new drive. It just has a cd-rom drive in it and the Drive image is on an external Maxtor USB drive and the bois doesnt recognize the usb drive from dos.
Thanx anyway guys. I guess i will figure something out eventually. Maybe I'll check dell for a cd or dvd-rw if it's reasonable.

[glc]

Most laptop drives will be either master/single or cable select with no jumper. Rather than use a USB adapter, why not get one of these and slave the drive into a desktop?

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=HD-108&cat=HDD

[PJ Smith]

I have a HP Pavilion - after several "blue screens' it eventually won't start up and I get a message something like (paraphrasing) " ....Toshiba imminent HDD failure..." There is also a note .." Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt \windows\system 32\config\system. You can attempt to repair - - put in the orig CD - - hit "r" (to start repair) .

QUESTION 1 - Does this sound like I need a new Hard Drive?
Assuming "yes"
Question 2 - How do I get my operating system (Windows XP) onto the new hard drive?

Thanks

[thefultonhow]

PJ Smith -- please create a new thread for your issue. We like to keep different kinds of problems as separated as possible. Creating a new thread will give your problem more visibility to other forum members and will make for less confusion in this thread.