I know how to dismantle my LAPTOP and put it back together with out any issue but i learned from playing with a dead one and a video here and there. Long story short, my hard drive got smashed (bro's revenge) while i was cleaning out the fans. I didn't have much there so it's not that big of a deal, mainly used it for light gamimg and for school, but I'm a bit confused on how hard drives comes in new. How do I install the OS when windows is on the broken drive? Is there instructions when buying it (Amazon/newegg)? Btw laptop is lenovo y700 14'.
Is buying a new hard drive just plug and play?
RedJive
If the hard drive is completely dead, you'll need a copy of the OS to install from some other media. You can get a copy on DVD, if the laptop has a DVD drive, or download a copy and put it on USB. In general terms you put in the new hard drive, then the install media. Boot off the install media and it will prompt you to do the install. Just follow the instructions.
Guest
Probably
Remy
You can contact the manufacturer of your laptop and for a modest fee will send you a copy of your recovery software ie Factory reset.
This will install the operating system, all the necessary drivers and software that your laptop came with when bought.
Norm F
The hard drive itself is plug and play. However, it will be blank. You will need to install the OS.
You could order a set of Recovery DVD(s) from your manufacturer as Norm says. However, I personally wouldn't do it that way since this will install all the bloatware apps that came with your computer such as those "helper" apps which are often more useless than useful.
You can download Windows 10 (assuming it came with that) for free directly from Microsoft using their Media Creation tool. You can then burn a DVD or create a bootable flash drive (generally faster) to install Windows on your newly installed HDD on your laptop. Of course, doing it this way will mean that you will need to download the appropriate drivers for your specific laptop from Lenovo. It is some extra work, but I prefer it over having bloatware apps which aren't always easy to remove.
Master Of Puppets