Switch Hard-drives

[Narnia]

My friend's laptop's motherboard quit working a while ago and it was suggested that we replace my old laptop's corrupt hard-drive with my friend's working harddrive to fix the problem. The problem with this is my laptop's fan doesn't work, nor does the CD drive. Convinently, the two computers are identical and have opposite problems, my friend's motherboard is toast, mine is not, my harddrive is busted, her's is not, my computer's fan is broken, her's is not. Which is gennerally easier to do, to trade the harddrive, fan, and CD drive between two laptops or to swap motherboards? If it makes a difference, we have Toshiba Satellite A-205 s5843 laptops. I placed the link to the manufacturer's webpage in spoilers below. Also, is there anything we need to be careful about in swapping out hardware? i.e. Don't touch this or else you will get an electrical shock or something like that? Also, where could I find a picture/description of what a hard-drive/motherboard looks like and where could I find information on where these components are on my computer? Thank you very much.

Spoiler :

http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/satellite/A200/A205-S5843

 

[Turner]

Obviously, you're going to want to be sure that the power is off to the machine. With a laptop, I always unplug the a/c and remove the battery. If you want to be real anal about it, you can hold the power button down for 30 seconds or so, and discharge what's left in the capacitors.

The hardest part is going to be the fan, depending on the machine. I've taken a lot of Toshiba Tecras apart, but not a satellite. There's a website where a guy takes most of the Tecras and rips them apart with pictures, I don't know if he does satellites. Anyways, if you're lucky you'll just need to remove most of the screws, and remove the fan. If you're not lucky, you'll have to remove all the screws to get to the underside of the motherboard to get the fan off. The hard drive and cd drive should be real easy. Most of the Toshibas I've worked with have had a sort of hot swap bay for the cd drive, you slide a switch on the bottom and the drive pops out. The hard drive should be under a removable panel, remove two screws and you have access to it to remove/replace it. The hard part will be the fan... google for replace satellite a-205 fan, and you should find instructions on how to get to it.

Anyways, to answer your question it's easier to replace the hard drive/CD drive, and change fans is easier than mother board but requires almost the same amount of work. But, I'm not familiar with the A-205, it could be as easy as removing the keyboard to get access to it.

 

[Narnia]

Thanks

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Just be warned that there will likely be some driver issues, even if your systems are 'identical', when you swap the drives.