Gateway Parts

Gateway 200ARC laptop computer. Salvagable?

Any one have one of these laptops or experience with this make & model, and if so, did you have problems with it? My son has one and the hard drive appears to have failed. I am estimating it will cost me about $125 - $150 to have the local puter shop repair it. Is it worth it? I saw a scathing review on-line where someone had several failures with one and then not very good support for it. I also saw on-line where I could buy one for $584. Is it worth the cost mentioned to repair, or might he just end up with other problems too? If you have a positive experience with one, I would not mind hearing of that either. Thanks, in advance

Public Comments

1. You can replace the hard drive yourself. There are 2 screws holding the drive inside underneath the laptop. Remove the screws and slide the hard drive caddy out. Then unscrew the old hard drive from the caddy. You can get a new drive cheap that will work. Samsung makes a lot of hard drives for all kinds of laptops. I even found one for my old AST M6000 that is now a 40 gig upgraded from a 4.6 gig. You will have to format and reinstall Windows on the new drive.
2. Dear fellow member, For that cost, buy a brand new one at Dell.com for under $450 bucks. The repairs are not worth it. If the hard drive IS the only problem, buy a new one would be a good alternative at http://www.newegg.com and install it yourself to save money. Usually very simple for hard drive replacements unless your hard drive was built in dependant upon manufacturer. Kind Regards, Ben