Member Avatar for YancePants100

Hi so my girlfriend's mom has a Dell Dimension B110 and the HDD may be fried, and i want to take my Toshiba mk8034gsk HDD and boot up the desktop to see if i can teel if the Dell HDD is fried or has a virus. I need any help i can get. If you can help me or need to see the two items you can email (i'll send my email in private messages only) with the pictures of the desktop and laptop HDD.
Thanks in advance.

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Short, practical plan to answer ’s question without assuming the B110’s exact internals. Build on the suggestions from and : treat the Toshiba MK8034GSK as a known-good test device and run a small sequence of physical checks and non-destructive tests rather than guessing at “fried” vs. “virus.”

  1. Identify the interface first. The MK8034GSK is a 2.5" laptop drive — visually confirm whether it has a single, wide 44-pin/IDE-style connector or separate SATA data (7-pin) + power (15-pin) contacts. Match that to the Dell bay or pick the correct adapter/enclosure (2.5"→3.5" bracket and the proper power/data cable, or a USB adapter/dock that accepts the drive type).

  2. Swap safely and test: power down and unplug the PC, ground yourself, remove the suspect drive, fit the Toshiba into the same bay or a temporary adapter, reconnect power/data, then power up. Enter BIOS (watch the POST key) and confirm the drive is detected. If the BIOS sees the drive, a neutral boot medium (a live Linux USB or Windows installer/recovery disk) is the quickest way to inspect the drive contents, run SMART checks, and/or run filesystem repairs without relying on a preinstalled OS that may fail on different hardware.

  3. Interpreting results: if the Toshiba works but Windows on it won’t start, that’s usually a driver/hardware-mismatch issue — not proof the Dell drive is bad. If the Dell drive shows no detection, repeated clicking, lots of bad sectors, or SMART failure flags, that points to hardware failure. If the Dell drive is detected but files are missing or suspicious, scan it from a clean OS (mounted as a secondary disk) with up-to-date malware tools.

Cautions: always back up important data before running repairs, avoid hot-swapping without proper enclosures or power-off, and stop if the drive makes mechanical noises — professional recovery may be required. This sequence lets a working Toshiba be used as a diagnostic tool or temporary boot device while minimizing risk to data.

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Member Avatar for JorgeM

An easier, more common approach is to remove the hard drive that you think is "fried" from the system, and plug it into another working computer via an external USB connection. If you do not have the PATA/SATA to USB device, they run about $20.00 at the local computer store. These devices are handy to have around and they allow you to connect desktop and the smaller laptop drives to the same USB connection.

When connected in this manner, you can copy the important pictures and other files safely before you continue to troublehsoot the failed drive.

Member Avatar for YancePants100

is it possible to have the dell run from the Toshiba HDD?

Member Avatar for rubberman

Are you asking if it can run using the Toshiba drive, or are you asking if you can boot from an operating system already installed on the Toshiba drive? In the first case, probably, as long as they use the same interface (PATA or SATA). In the second situation, maybe, though most manufacturer installed Windows operating systems are configured to only run on the same hardware.

Member Avatar for JorgeM

Yes the dell can run from another hard drive assuming the hardware had an interface for the incoming drive. The bigger issue is the the OS loaded will detect new hardware (the dell hardware). It will do its best with regard to plug in play, but it may not be able to detect all components. Worst case, Windows will crash.

Usually when drives start acting flaky, te best approach is to get the data off, plug a another drive in and either install a clean Windows instance or run the vendor's recovery CDs.

Member Avatar for YancePants100

I was going to Install windows xp sp3 on the toshiba after wiping it clean but my laptop doesnt work so i cant do that and i cant do it from the desktop. cant i hoot it up via usb and run it off as a hdd?

Member Avatar for JorgeM

As long as the computer allows you to boot from a USB drive, then yes. You will need to check the BIOS settings.

Member Avatar for YancePants100

Thanks ill check when i can get the part

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