Question MSI Leopard GP70-2QE: does not recognize SSDs, primary display stopped working.

[Justiceinacan]

Hi all.
I'm a first year university student, and unfortunately, my other laptop bit it the day after my last class of the semester. Knowing that it'll take too long to process the warranty, if they even accept the warranty (overheated Acer while trying to relax and play video games...), I think it's a better idea to either a) fix myself a new laptop or b) buy a new one, and I'd prefer to save my money if I can.
The system I have is an MSI Leopard GP70-2QE [i5-4210H, 940M, 8GB DDR3]. A few years old and nothing particularly amazing, but it will get the job done (I'm a commuter now, so all I need is a note-taker and sometimes lightweight CAD modeling). It used to be my brother's, but he discarded it because it was making an odd smell.

1. I identified the smell as the battery, and I've found multiple websites that sell replacements for this exact battery for a reasonable price. So that's good. I'll order a new one if I can get it working again. I've been trying to get it working with just the plug, no battery, if that makes any difference. The smell is gone when using the system without the battery.
2. The laptop will only put out a display to an external monitor (through the VGA port), not the primary screen. This has only been happening very recently, I remember I had a look at it last month and the normal display was working. I have other 17.3" laptop displays on hand, should I try to swap a different one? Is that possible?
3. It won't recognize the SSD I tried to swap in, only the hard drive it came with. The hard drive feels a bit slow and I would prefer to use an SSD. I have two Kingston A400 drives I've tried to install, but the Windows installation tool says I don't have any drives plugged in when I try to install Windows on either one.

If you can provide any advice for #2 and #3 I would appreciate the help.

 

[hang-the-9]

If the laptop is in warranty then you should go through that no matter how long it takes even if you do buy a new one.

As far as fixing this other laptop, it may be possible to replace the screen, but you need to research exactly what screen you have and see if they are at all similar in specs and connection cable.

For Windows setup on it, are you installing Win 10? Drive mode set to AHCI and boot type to UEFI it that is available in your system?