Easy to repair screen & DVD drive?

Hi,

I've got an HP laptop that I'm rather fond of. It's nearly 2 years old, but still good spec.

Today I dropped my laptop while packing to move house and I've damaged it. There's cosmetic damage to the corner of the body of the laptop, minor hinge damage to the screen lid, the DVD drive has snapped off, the keyboard lost a key and popped out and the screen itself cracked and now only shows black patterns, lines and the odd flash of white light.

The laptop boots up and I can hear widows 7 chime when it does, but I can't see anything or test if there are other problems.

Is this easy enough to fix and is it expensive in terms of parts and labour?

Thanks

 

In terms of labor? Well obviously that depends on whose doing the labor. If you take it to a computer shop, they might charge as much as 200$. I would suggest replacing the screen yourself.

I believe something like this will work
Chi Mei N156B6 L0D 1366x768 WXGA HD 15 6" Laptop LED LCD Screen | eBay

However you should take out your old screen and compare it to the pictures.

What do you mean the DVD drive snapped off? I think its more likely the button and bezel has come off and it still works fine. There may be a button contact you can press to eject it or once you fix the screen you can right click on the DVD drive in my computer and hit eject.

While you're waiting for a screen you can use the laptop hooked up to a TV with HDMI or a monitor with VGA (unless you only have displayport or something).

 

The actual DVD drawer snapped off and there's a piece of metal and cable from it that's snapped too.

 

Oh I see. Well yeah thats very easy to replace you just have to find a single screw that holds it in place. I'm sure you can get a DVD drive (not a DVD burner) for like 10 bucks. The interface is probably SATA. As always compare detailed photos. And, you might want to measure it to see if its 12.7mm vs 9.5mm.

 

Sorry, it was a burner.

I'm not a technical person so I'm thinking it's an insurance job to repair. Just hoping they send it back with all my data in place.

 

Hmm I have very little knowledge of insurance repairs or anything like that. All I've ever heard of is them doing is replacing systems with a different unit.

I was saying you can replace the burner with a normal DVD reader unless you need to burn DVDs.

If you want to for sure keep all your data you could remove your hard drive, that would be extremely easy, you could even buy an adapter to copy it onto another system.

 

Yeah, I think that may be the safer option. If I start tinkering I may make it worse.

Thanks

 

Things have got worse.

Before my laptop went to the insurers for checking I decided to try and back up my data. I plugged the laptop in to my TV and powered it up. This time instead of hearing the HDD come to life and windows chime I got a burning smell and nothing but fans spinning!

 

If you're smelling a burning smell, I'd immediately disconnect everything (including battery) and just leave the laptop alone. Last thing you need to do is to burn part of your house down!

At this point, it's probably best to let a professional repair the laptop (or if you can, claim it as a loss and get a replacement).

 

The insurers are dealing. It was picked up by a courier this afternoon for them to assess it. Apparently I'll hear back in 5 days whether it's a case of fix or replace.

 

They just added £34 to buy my HDD back in a USB caddy in the event of my laptop being written off.

 

Plus the cost of shipping, plus handling, plus taxes...

I would have removed the HDD before I sent them anything. (An external USB enclosure is ~$6.00).

 

The price quoted is the total price. It's not just for a caddy, if they write off my laptop they'll replace it. That means they'll own my laptop. So that price includes buying the HDD back from them.

I have to include the HDD when I send it to them because it's the entire system that's insured.

 

No, I've 'NEVER' had to do anything (regarding HDD's and my/client's DATA).

If that is the total cost, okay - but will they ENSURE you get your HDD and contents back?

 

I get the HDD back. It's then up to me to retrieve the data from it. I'm buying back that part of the hardware that they essentially now own. The data isn't covered on my insurance so it's pot luck.