Dell x300 laptop

[braveheartgeek]

Hi, I need a little bit of assistance. To make a long story short my dog was chasing our cat and knocked over my computer, breaking some keys and the monitor was already lose but made it worse and then later it came off. I had some problems rewiring my monitor so I called a tech place to have someone come out to reconnect it. The laptop was working just fine except its old and the monitor hinges were broke which made the wires come disconnected. The guy tells me the laptop isn't worth fixing because of the monitor and there's some keys missing on the keyboard. However, as I said the laptop was working and booting and I was still using it until this guy took it apart. he took my hard drive out and gave it to me. Then he left.... I got to thinking about it and I really would have liked him to put my laptop back together at least so I could use it and get my data off my hard drive but i didn't want them coming near it so i put it back together myself. However, on the underside of the laptop, there is a cover where two wires one white and one black that are still disconnected. I think these are part of the monitor but I am really not sure and was wondering if anyone can tell me what they are and what do I connect them to? Thanks.

Sophie

 

[KevinBumber]

Do you have any way to post some pictures of the underside of the laptop?

 

[DoubleHelix]

When you use the term "monitor", I assume you mean the laptop's display, correct? You say it was booting and working properly until a technician looked at it, but since you couldn't see everything on the screen, how do you know it was booting?

Any time a laptop makes contact with a floor, the potential exists for numerous problems. Most just aren't designed to take the impact. If it was jarring enough to break hinges and keys, then it's definitely possible that the hard drive and/or system board are damaged as well.

The best route now is probably to get an external USB hard drive enclosure and hope you can recover some of the data.

 

[braveheartgeek]

Hi, Thank you for your reply. Yes it is the monitor for the laptop. The laptop was working but I did have to use an external monitor since the two wires on the right side, black/white wires, had come undone. After I put the laptop back together, it still works except those two wires underneath the bottom of the laptop are not connected and it also does not detect the hard drive. the hinges are broken so the monitor doesn't stand up anymore. So I know it was booting because I had it hooked up to an external monitor and the monitor on the laptop still worked. Prior to the technician looking at the laptop, the only problem with it was that the black/white wires were not connected but as i said he took it apart and I had to put it back together. The hinges were weakened before the dog knocked it over but I was using a velcro strap to hold it up. I put a lot of time into this laptop and it doesn't look good but it did the job I needed it for. I'll need to figure out how to get some pictures of the underside. Thanks.

Sophie

 

[DoubleHelix]

A computer is not working "fine" if the primary hard drive is not detected.

You need to get an external USB drive enclosure, connect it to another computer, and pray. There really isn't a point in trying to get any parts of the laptop back together again.

 

[braveheartgeek]

Yeah, you're right, its not working fine, that's why I was asking about those two wires on the bottom. But it was working and the hard drive was detected before the technician took it apart. I don't think he did anything wrong, I should have asked him to put it back together but I was short on money so I paid him the $99.00 for the hour of work he did. I just couldn't afford to pay him anymore and I should have known better than to try to put it back together myself. It was sort of a last ditch effort to get the monitor working properly. Its really funny cause now we're doing a yard sale tomorrow to get some money so I can get another used laptop. I'm just borrowing this one for now. Thanks for your advice. I don't have a usb drive so I'm just going to have to let it go. I've already lost too many hours of work trying to fix it and I need to get back to work.

Sophie

 

[DoubleHelix]

Not a USB drive, a USB enclosure. You would connect your laptop's hard drive to it and then connect the enclosure to another computer to try to recover your data.

If you don't care about any of the data on the drive, then skip it.