Hard drive incompatibility?

[mechman]

Lots of technical terms here in this!

Compaq Evo N600c, although I imagine this is true for any Compaq laptop during certain eras.

Step 1: Flip over, unscrew the screw in the center of the laptop. It's in a recessed hole, and has a picture of a keyboard and an arrow pointing to it.

Step 2: With a something, slide back the 4 thingies that clip the keyboard down. They are between the esc and F1, between F4 and F5, between F8 and F9, and between F12 and delete.

Step 3: Gently pry at one corner, and the entire keyboard should lift out.

Step 4: There are two places where cables attach the keyboard to the computer. They are weird. It's just a ribbon cable. There's no kind of plug on the end. The ribbon slides into a grooved track and somehow magically makes contact. When you pull them out, you will be sure that you have detached the cable from the plug, but it's ok, that's supposed to happen.

At this point, you can clean gum from the underside of the keyboard, or replace the keyboard, or whatever it is that you wanted to do.

"With a something" and "thingies"... More than likely a something is a small flat screwdriver and the thingies are retention tabs. Be sure to have it unplugged and the battery removed. And be careful plugging in the new ribbon cable.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Thanks for the links, Don! I did find some on eBay myself last night after you suggested the keyboard might be replaceable. Good to know they're so cheap and an easy install, once you get the computer apart. On that note:

Mike P. wrote:

The proper way to take a laptop apart can be found in the service manual. It will have pics of the step by step procedure.

Thanks for the tip, Mike - I'll look one up.

Regards,
Wayne

[robbo266317]

When I worked for Compaq all the screws were star drives and occasionaly were different lengths so you need to note where they came from. You should be able to get them from an electronics or hardware store

[xflapx]

From everything that has been said, it doesn't sound like a keyboard issue. If you really swapped the hard drives on the two laptops, and the problem carried over to the good one, and disappeared in the bad one, replacing the keyboards wouldn't change anything. It's either a software issue on the hard drive you are swapping, or by some random off chance a minor electrical failure in the hard drive causing the keyboard to malfunction somehow. Never even heard of the latter happening, but I do know that hard drives are the most susceptible piece of hardware in a PC when it comes to power supply failure.

[8086]

I believe the solution and problem is not quite as complected as others make it sound. It appears that your wife is not having the problem when she uses the computer and that it only happens when you use it. So the problem is that you are bumping or turning something on/off while typing.

Nearly Every laptop made today has a FN key and when it's pressed in combination with certain keys on the keyboard it will enable things like SCROLL LOCK, CD EJECT, and NUM LOCK. I think somehow when you type, you are enabling the NUM lock function which happens to also disable the very same keys you have say don't work.

To enable/disable hold the FN (function) key down then look for the key on the keyboard labeled with NUM lock (sometimes F12 or F10, but varies based on MFG)


As far as swapping drive is concerned, electrically they are likely to both be electrically compatible SATA drives. However, the operating installed on the drive is not likely going to work on any other computer than the one it came from. This is because each machine has a unique hardware identifier and the operating system is locked down to that machine. MS does this to help curb piracy and unauthorized/unlicensed use.