Windows won't start up - Bad hard drive and/or Windows

[gpayne]

You should not have to do anything. You should be able to hook up either drive if the operating system is good on both drives. The only difference would be that the contents of the drives would not be identical. I would intall the old drive and if everything works then just reformat it and keep it for a spare since you have already intalled a new drive and reinstalled the software. If there is really nothing wrong with the original drive everything should work as it did before. I am assuming that this was the "C" drive. (The drive that had the operating system on it.(Windows).) I must admit that I thought you were talking about a desktop or tower type computer though. I did not understand that you had two laptops. My experience was with a tower type computer case.

gpayne