Dead Dell Latitude D600

[Med]

A coworker of mine has a Dell Latitude D600. She turned it on the other day, and it could not locate the hard drive. The hard drive clicks about 3 times before the computer brings up the error message "Primary hard disk drive 0 not found. No boot device available". I checked the BIOS, and it doesn't see the hard drive at all. My guess is dead hard drive. I have a couple questions though.

1) If it isn't being recognized at all, is there any way to get the data off of the hard drive? Hooking it up to a PC or using a boot disk won't help.

2) If yes, will the operating system be intact, or at the very least require a repair install?

3) She got the computer used, and the person who sold it to her did not have the windows restore disk. However, the CD Key is on a sticker on the bottom of the laptop. Is it possible (and legal) to use another Windows XP CD, and use the key on the laptop to activate it? Two versions have been paid for, just one CD is lost.

[thefultonhow]

You could try using a data-recovery program such as GetDataBack, but I can't promise that it would be able to see the hard drive. In terms of using another CD, it would be best to find a Dell one, but if you can't. then look for an OEM copy of XP. Obviously, you'd need to use Pro OEM if the Certificate of Authenticity is for XP Pro, and Home OEM if the COA is for XP Home.