Ok guys, a quick disclaimer: I'm only about two clicks up from a tech uber-noob and have almost literally no budget, so bear with me if this project seems overcomplicated or counterproductive; I can only work with what I have. About a week ago, we got a busted up Sony VAIO laptop from a shed next to a flea market in town for next to nothing. The screen was shattered and the harddrive is dead. I went ahead and took the screen off without getting a replacement because I figured it would be dumb to dump money into it after getting practically free, and hooked it up to an old external display that we got out of storage. Because the HDD is dead, I thought I'd pull the fairly new HDD out of my Toshiba Satellite, drop it in the Sony and manually install the WiFi driver needed to make it where Windows Update could take care of the rest. I thought it would work because downloading and installing the Wireless adapter driver on my fresh install of Windows for the Toshiba worked, but for the Sony, it couldn't pick up any signals whatsoever. WiFi works with the live CD of Linux Mint and Android x86, albeit very poorly, but not with the installation of Mint or Win7 that's already on the Toshiba's drive.... I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out how to get WiFi running without wiping and starting from scratch. The reasons being for my having to do it this unconventional way are that I haven't the money for a new HDD or access to a wired connection. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated, as I'm looking forward to trying to emulate gamecube and running PC games on it faster than on my Toshiba, which doesn't run right now anyway because of a lack of a charger and a failed battery.               EDIT: It didn't occur to me that getting a really cheap USB WiFi dongle would potentially bypass the issue... Would that work? And even so, is there any other way that it could be done so I could avoid spending $10-15, provided I can even come up with the cash?

If you have a USB stick you should be able to use your Mint CD or another computer to download the driver from Sony's website. Just put it on the USB stick, then boot into Windows and load it from there. You'll need to restart but then it should be ready to go?

Lazlo Falconi : Tried exactly that today with no success. I actually managed to get my neighbor to let me use a wired connection, which I didn't expect.... used driver booster to try to get everything up to date, and it still didn't work. Not limited to just the WiFi drivers, it won't work with the.display driver or anything else. When I installed Windows while the HDD was in the Toshiba, I used a copy I torrented and it didn't detect it as bootleg. After I put it in the Sony, it said it wasn't authentic. Is it possible that it won't let me update them because it knows it's pirated? It looks like I'm just going to have to save for a new hard drive, since I'd rather not wipe and start over...

Windows ties your installation to your motherboard's serial number, so if you install on a different set of hardware, then move it, Windows will complain, even if you had a cracked version already. Why not install it on the Sony properly? Moving Windows from one PC to another introduces a lot of problems.

Lazlo Falconi : I didn't know that. I guess my best bet for now is to back up 100 gb of stuff I want to keep, an 8 gb USB stick at a time and reinstall on the right hardware... At least I have a lot of free time.

Local Mods : I got everything running and I'm currently posting from it, so this can be closed.