Laptop HDD troubles

[Trash Man]

Just went to turn my laptop on and got a message saying that an operating system could not found. I thought this was strange so I tried a few things, none of which worked. After a few more minutes of messing about I was just gonna reinstall XP and start again.

When I put the XP CD in and let in boot off of that I got another error message saying that XP could not find my HDD and to make sure that it was plugged in correctly. Now unless some evil giot has unplugged my HDD, I am guessing that it's b0rked

Question is, how easy is it to change a HDD in a laptop? I am fine with desktops but I have never taken a laptop apart before and don't have a clue where anything is on them.

[mattpc]

Usually there is just a little plastic cover on the bottom of the laptop and you just remove this and pop the hard disk out. It's normally quite simple.

[daverobev]

As matt says, usually very, very easy - for example my Toshiba Satellite (recent model) and all of works Satellite Pros (old!) do need literally one screw out, cover popped, and HDD pulled in one direction or another and out they come!

BUT!

Some are a major deconstruction job. My iBook needs basically complete dissasembly to get to the drive. I'd guess sealed units and proprietary lappies (ie very different to the normal layout) would also be a pain.

But, chances are, its a 10 minute job...check whether you need a 12.5mm or 9.5 mm high unit though! The 9.5 mm jobs should fit anything, but obviously the 12.5s won't fit in certain ones (....my iBook again!).