Reviving a dead laptop.

[John_Rich]

So, I’ve been needing a new computer for a while and decided to try to fix my old laptop.  It’s an HP from 2012 or 2013, and was fairly well spec’d for the time (it could run a minecraft server and minecraft client at the same time with 3 other users and minimal “quality reductions”) i7 and 16GB RAM if I remember correctly.

 

So, the problem, I’m pretty sure about, is a HDD crash.  The drive will click when you try to access the data.  It’s been dead for about 4 years now and it’s just been waiting to be repaired or scrapped (I have a problem, I know). 
 

So, I got an SSD with 480GB, and I’m thinking of running Pop_OS for the operating system, since I’ve been wanting to try it and I don’t want to buy a windows license.  I can replace the hard drive, no problem, but I can’t seem to get the Pop_OS to be recognized.  I’ve probably done something obviously wrong, but at this point I’m lost.  My current “toolset” is a working laptop (wife’s), flash drive, and a “portable hard drive converter” that allows me to plug a hard drive in as a flash drive.

 

 I have the old drive and I plan to do data recovery on it later on, but I don’t think that will be helpful for this.

 

If I’m not able to get this working, I’ll probably have to scrape together the cash to go buy a new one.

 

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

[Biohazard777]

46 minutes ago, John_Rich said:

So, I got an SSD with 480GB, and I’m thinking of running Pop_OS for the operating system, since I’ve been wanting to try it and I don’t want to buy a windows license.  I can replace the hard drive, no problem, but I can’t seem to get the Pop_OS to be recognized.

How are you installing Pop!_OS ? Kinda hard to help you without knowing.
Anyhow 1st step is to get a regular cheapo flash drive, 8GB is enough.
Then on your wife's laptop download Ventoy: https://www.ventoy.net/en/download.html

Download Pop_OS: https://pop.system76.com/

Follow Ventoy getting started guide: https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_start.html

You should now have a usb stick with a live Pop!_OS ready to be used.

Plug it into the your old HP and boot from the stick, wait for the system to load up, once you reach the desktop follow Pop!_OS guide:

https://support.system76.com/articles/install-pop

PS You can use Ventoy to put multiple live images on it at the same time. If for whatever reason Pop!_OS doesn't work I suggest giving other distros a try, ones that aren't based on Debian/Ubuntu, like Manjaro: https://manjaro.org/download/ or Solus: https://getsol.us/download/

 

PPS If you get stuck, please elaborate on where / how you are getting stuck.

Good luck.

[John_Rich]

3 hours ago, Biohazard777 said:

How are you installing Pop!_OS ? Kinda hard to help you without knowing.
Anyhow 1st step is to get a regular cheapo flash drive, 8GB is enough.
Then on your wife's laptop download Ventoy: https://www.ventoy.net/en/download.html

Download Pop_OS: https://pop.system76.com/

Follow Ventoy getting started guide: https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_start.html

You should now have a usb stick with a live Pop!_OS ready to be used.

Plug it into the your old HP and boot from the stick, wait for the system to load up, once you reach the desktop follow Pop!_OS guide:

https://support.system76.com/articles/install-pop

PS You can use Ventoy to put multiple live images on it at the same time. If for whatever reason Pop!_OS doesn't work I suggest giving other distros a try, ones that aren't based on Debian/Ubuntu, like Manjaro: https://manjaro.org/download/ or Solus: https://getsol.us/download/

 

PPS If you get stuck, please elaborate on where / how you are getting stuck.

Good luck.

Thank you, I’ll try it tonight.

[whispous]

Assuming it was once upgraded to Windows 10, you don't need to buy a windows license to reinstall it. It will recognise the hardware IDs upon fresh install and activate automatically online.

 

But pop OS is cool.

[John_Rich]

On 9/18/2021 at 5:34 PM, whispous said:

Assuming it was once upgraded to Windows 10, you don't need to buy a windows license to reinstall it. It will recognise the hardware IDs upon fresh install and activate automatically online.

 

But pop OS is cool.

 It was only on Win7, but I was able to get Pop to work.

[John_Rich]

Thank you  for the help, I was able to get it up and running.