Hello,
I am an advanced computer user, yet new with laptop hardware; I am wondering if a hard drive upgrade procedure would differ on a laptop than pc, as it seems straight forward-- or am I ignorant?

I pulled my 5gb from my Toshiba Tecra 8100 and cloned it to a 40gb Western Digital WD400 (WD Mercury) with true image on my desktop pc using an ide 2.5 to 3.5 adapter and a 2.5" usb connector using true images migrate easy option from dos.

The copy worked fine: I placed the clone 40gb in the laptop (precariously inserted temporarily) and it booted great!

Ok, so time to mount the hardware permently, screw everything back together and boot again to make sure all is well:

No post! I get the "external power" and "on" light in green, short HD light for about 1 second (it looks like it seeks shortly) then HD light goes out and the computer just runs-- no screen, fan is running , HD is spinning maybe-- hard to tell, but pretty sure it is. It acts like it is on, but no way it is booting without a screen as the HD is not active...and no POST beep.

I try to shut the screen and i get repeated beeping. Sometimes it wont shut off. Sometimes I hold the power button and it begins to beep. Once it beeped 30 times then powered off after a 3 second push to the power button. Othertimes i hold the power and it simplt shuts off.

Q. Did I do something ameteurish and skip steps to a HD upgrade? Or could my problem have nothing to do with the HD (unlikely), but just a coincidence sicnce i was "handling" the machine and hurt it some other way unrelated to the HD?

I put the old drive back, pushed the reset button, pulled the battery then used ac only, cycled the fn+f5 "monitor" keys, tried booting to the CD-rom (it just lit the light and spun- the light stayed on), pulled the ram and blew out the conacts with compressed air... No screen, no post.

I want to reset the bios... how? Pull the internal battery? But how do I open this laptop?

Please throw some ideas at me. i'll try anything. I am hoping I bumped it and something came loose inside. I gotta get this thing open, but would like a little handholding.. what to expect when disassembling a laptop-- procedure, warnings...

thanx

Joe