Laptop Hard Drive broken?

[ratel505]

my laptop hdd is broken can i use an external hdd?

 

[RetiredChief]

If you use a Operating system that can be booted from an "USB" drive and laptop ALLOWS booting from USB device.
In General the Answer is NO, ie you can not run windows 7, or XP, from an extrenal drive. There are some limited exception.

Just replace the HDD and reload your operating system.