My friend has an old vaio laptop, (a PCG-FR130) and it's been messing up quite a bit on her. It appears that a power surge fried her hard drive, but apparently it must've screwed her power source/battery in the same instance. When I can get the system to actually start, it says it wasn't shutdown properly the last time and gives a few options for startup config, then it makes it to the windows boot screen, but flashes a blue screen of death right before it restarts to go through the process again. So I popped in a winXP Pro CD to reformat it, and I make it through the CD far enough to choose which partition to install the OS on and it just conks out on me...like someone unplugged the computer, the power source just gives out after maybe 5 or 10 minutes of operation, even if its plugged in. So I thought it was the battery, and I took the battery out, to operate it on the power chord alone, and it gives out even sooner, after less than 5 minutes of operation.

So ultimately, I guess my question is would replacing the battery solve the problem of at least the power source? Or would the actual power source inside the laptop need to be replaced in addition to the battery...or what? I've no idea about laptop hardware, or if it's even worth the time considering the age of the computer...But if I could get the frkin thing to stay on, I could repartition the hard drive and isolate its bad sectors. Any help is appreciated, thanks.

Well, you could try getting a new battery. If that doesn't work, then you are probably screwed because the power supply in a laptop is near impossible to get too and its one of the many components that can't be replaced (course, if you were old-fashioned and use soldering tools and that junk, I guess anything's possible).

But let's jump from that era (the 80s) to 2007. Usually when a power surge strikes a computer, it isn't good. The computer is more than likely toast.

In other words you'll need to buy a new computer. And to prevent the same mistake from happening again, buy a UPS battery backup to protect it from power problems. These usually comes with a high-priced warranty, like $40,000 equipment failure in case it goes wrong. And the only reason it will go wrong is if the electricity isn't properly grounded and up-to-date, leaving me to ask, just where do you live?

Funny you should ask, we live on Sheppard Air Force Base in wichita falls texas...not by choice of course, we were told to come here, so here we are, heh. But the building we live in could certainly be the source of the problem, its about 40 or 50 years old I would guess, and not in the best condition electrically...or otherwise, considering the shear volume of all the airmen in training that blow through here every six months or so. Owning a UPS is just an unnecessary burden, both physically and financially considering our situation, so thats out...I guess I have to tell her to scrap it and invest in a new one. Wouldn't be a bad idea, this thing is 3 or 4 years old I think. I appreciate your insight but I doubt she'll even want to bother dropping the 60-100 bucks for a new battery either...knowing it probably won't work anyway. Thanks again