Plugging in a hard drive from a different laptop into mine?

the other answer is not correct. It MAY NOT boot, but then again it may boot. The issues is if the drivers are there for your laptop. The problem is if it died on her laptop, it is still going to be dead on yours. the operating system is not on your computer, its on the hard drive that you are going to take out of your computer. Yes the USB enclosure is a good idea, but if the hard drive is damaged it will not be good in a usb either. try the usb. If you decided to try it in your laptop, first turn everything off and let it sit for a while to take all the charge out of the system. that means take out your battery then let it sit. then put in the hard drive and see if it boots. if it does, you might be able to get something onto a usb, but don't expect it to work, it may not. Then after you are done, do the same thing again. turn it off, take out the battery and wait before you put your hard drive back in. It should not change anything. Just don't make any system changes that you don't want to deal with . the hard drive is where EVERYTHING is stored, drivers, OS, everything.